


What Happens On Sakaar (stays on Sakaar)

by Write_like_an_American



Series: How To Train Your Buglin [2]
Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Background Relationships, Buglin, F/F, Gen, Gladiators, Hints of Sexual Slavery, Loki has landed on Sakaar, M/M, Plot, Pre-Ragnarok, Slave Trade, Slave!Kraglin, Thor hasn't, Worldbuilding, kragdu
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-10
Updated: 2018-09-27
Packaged: 2019-05-20 12:05:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 35,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14894322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Write_like_an_American/pseuds/Write_like_an_American
Summary: What's every Spacer's worst nightmare? Everything goes tits-up and you crashland on Sakaar.Thrown into a crazy new world of gladiator matches, rebel politics and En Dwi Gast's terrible taste in interior design, Kraglin and Yondu will have to use all their ingenuity to escape. If they're lucky, they might not kill each other on the way.





	1. Guess I Just Lost My Husband

**Author's Note:**

> You asked for more Buglin, so you're getting more Buglin!
> 
> While this is technically a sequel to my last challenge-fic, _Fishing in the Dark_ (Warning: Explicit) it has a very different setting and tone. It can absolutely be read alone! All you need to know is that Kraglin transformed into the blue furry critter we see in the comics, and that Yondu made an incredibly stupid deal with the Collector to bring him back again. You don't need to be familiar with either Ravager to enjoy this story. 
> 
> It's mostly a fun romp inspired by _**Thor: Ragnarok**_ (although, disclaimer, I've only ever seen it once). Valkyrie is as much the main character as either of the boys, and En Dwi and Loki will make plenty of guest appearances. Enjoy!

The weather took a turn for the inclement. A compression spring the length of a grown man’s thigh bone clattered out of an SVH and smacked the Valkyrie on the head.

 

“Fuck."

 

That just about summed it up.

 

The Valkyrie eased herself to sit, probing her rattled teeth, blood thundering between her ears. It took her a moment to get her bearings, orientate herself against the badlands' jagged horizon. She'd landed on something squashy that stank strongly of earwax, and her innate curiosity warred with her certainty that she _didn't want to know_.

 

Squeezing her throbbing temple with one hand, she checked the inch sloshing around the bottom of her bottle with the other. Not bad - only lost a fingerful. Assured that she had enough left to put a sheen over the day, the Valkyrie hauled herself off her sticky mattress and treated the spring to a well-deserved kick.

 

"Jackass," she said, with feeling.

 

She set off once more, tramping over decommissioned Svartalf gatlings, slimy fruit peels, crusty socks, crustier underwear, leaking batteries, bags of drowned things and mouldering food packets that crunched and squeaked beneath her boots, their bright colors leached by the sun. Scavengers loitered on the neighboring hillock: a junk pile craggier than a Celestial's beard. They watched her passage, chittering among themselves, their Outworlder cant too thick for her translator to make sense of.

 

The Valkyrie waved her middle finger in their general direction. “Dream on, boys. Little lovetap like that isn't going to slow me down."

 

Her destination reared ahead. It was another mound, higher than theirs, crowned with barbed wire and battered by the constant hail of dross. It featured the typical scenic highlights: burst trash bags, their entrails stewing in the midsummer heat; glitching holo-adverts that blared random snippets of color and sound; hoverscooters rusted into one another by the acid rain.

 

And there, at the mountain's summit, perched the bird.

 

She was a pretty thing by Sakaar’s standards. Sleek but chunky, with a jay-plumage of color trimming each slanted wing.

 

One had been damaged during atmospheric entry. More Scavengers swarmed the rupture, disembowelling the ship through her papercut. They grabbed handfuls of insulation tubing, pruning it with everything from safety-scissors to garden secateurs. All were smart enough to scatter when the Valkyrie came huffing up the prow of the hill, her thumb a cork in the bottle’s slippery mouth.

 

"Yeah. That's right. You better run."

 

She reached the ship, propping her boot on the lopsided wing. It had landed skew-whiff, crashing into the garbage at an obtuse angle. The landscape groaned and creaked, struggling to account for the new weight, the increased drag of gravity. The ship might settle here, raising the mountain by another several feet, or the Valkyrie might return tomorrow to find it sunk into the marsh of cabling that suckled on its undercarriage, another sacrifice to the badland wastes.

 

Best take what she could carry, and leave the rest to the flies. 

 

If it was occupied, the pilot would’ve shown themselves by now. The Valkyrie punched the fuselage just in case, leaving a knuckle-shaped dent. There was no answering yell, no report of a plasma gun.

 

Salvage then, rather than loot. Not that it mattered.

 

The Valkyrie strode to the ship’s aft-airlock. She found it open but deactivated.

 

Unsurprising. Vortexes did inexplicable things to electronics; any vessel unlucky enough to fall through a hole in the fabric of the universe was either supercharged to the point of explosion or drained of power surer than if it had been caught in the bow wave of an EMP. This one went out with a whimper rather than a bang.

 

What was marginally more interesting was that the door had been pulled out of its locking clamp by force. And those claw marks: four of them on each side, etching an inch into solid steel…

 

The Valkyrie danced along them with her fingertips, brushing the scored edges of each ravine. 

 

 _Interesting,_ she thought.

 

She ducked out of the ship. The Scavengers were Sakaaran born-and-raised; they wouldn’t know a Kree air scrubber from the catalytic converter off a Midgardian locomotive. They'd focused on the broken wing rather than the contents of the ship. Whoever was on board could easily have slipped out without garnering their attention.

 

Sure enough, a convoy of loose-kicked rubble gathered at the hill’s base.  _A trail._

 

The Valkyrie's pulse picked up. Memory flared, almost aching in its intensity.

 

The whisper of wind through autumn leaves, the clop of her steed's hooves. Pine-sap and crushed needles; Guðr's lips pursed tight to the horn. The low, mournful note, summoning the Wild Hunt to ride out over Midgard, their hounds baying for blood...

 

But the hounds were gone now, Guðr and the horse with them. The Valkyrie stalked her quarry on foot.

 

“ _Warbird,”_ she said as she went, reading the inscription on the butchered wing. “Well, lil' _Warbird_ , I’m afraid you've done your flying.”

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

Whoever emerged from the _Warbird_ had been off-kilter from the crash, but their giddiness waned impressively fast. By the time they reached the fringes of the outpost, their trail was almost dry.

 

The air was gritty with the stink of molten road-tar. Valkyrie relied on word-of-mouth, as well as the occasional tuft of fur caught on a contorted twist of rebar here, a vat of bubbling aggregates there.

 

“Hey,” she called to the vendor of a sukri stall: cheap fried balls, the contents of which were best left to the imagination. “You see anyone come by? Anyone _strange?_ ”

 

She’d bribed descriptions from a few nomads en route: outcasts from society, exiles from the Scavenger bands, doomed to trawl the wastes until they were roasted over a firepit, buttocks served up as mignon. But they'd been higher than the colorful kites that swooped around the capitol, and corroborating their stories couldn't hurt.

 

The vendor snorted. “What's in it for me?”

 

The Valkyrie’s smile spread slow as daybreak across Valhalla. She showed the man her gloves. “Know what these are?”

 

He did.

 

“Want a three-turbo ballistic weapons system wiping your wart of a stall off Sakaar’s ugly face?”

 

He did not. He became a lot more cooperative after that.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

The Valkyrie absorbed his tale as slowly as her stomach acid broke down the sukri-ball she'd snatched. “Are you lying to me?”

 

“No! No, please - it's the truth, I swear!”

 

“Swear on your mother's grave?”

 

“My mother isn't dead!”

 

“Answer me if you want to keep it that way. The truth - was that it?”

 

Sweat shone on the man's rubbery jowls. He nodded as he scooped his sukri around and around the vat. You had to keep it moving, swimming in its oily pond, otherwise the batter clumped and you wound up with sticky gray sludge.

 

The Valkyrie didn't know why he bothered. It wasn't like the dumplings could get any  _less_ appetizing. Nevertheless, she'd had a liquid breakfast and her stomach was yowling like a bilgesnipe kit. She hoiked her second portion into a takeaway tin, sucking her burnt fingers.

 

“On the house,” she said. The vendor didn’t dare argue.

 

So her target was tall, blue, and rangy as an alley cat. He was covered head to toe in fur, but wore an ill-fitting pair of pants for modesty. He had stomped out of the badlands, inhaled five dumplings, and demanded the whereabouts of the nearest bar.

 

“Alright,” said the Valkyrie, washing the sukri down with the remains from her bottle and tossing it to smash in the gutter with the rest. “Let's go say hi.”

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

The atmosphere grizzled with smoke. Heat-haze wobbled from the vents, methane bubbling up from the landfill pits this town squatted over, its foundations driven into the garbage like stilts into mud.

 

It was on her third scan of the clientele – back, forth, back again – that her eyes caught on an abundance of body hair (body hair which  _didn't_ belong to the Kymellian filly mincing back and forth across the stage, occasionally delivering a pirouette with the aid of a nearby pole).

 

He perched on a stool in the darkest corner, turned away from the show. As the Valkyrie watched, his tongue slid out of his mouth. It kept on sliding, further and further, until it could rinse each compound eye.

 

Well, that was interesting. Perhaps En Dwi would want this one for his seraglio after all.

 

The Valkyrie sashayed through the crowd, greeting any wandering hands with gropes hard enough to crush ballsacks to paste. She slid onto the stool beside her mark, counting his twelve empties, and whistled to herself under her breath.

 

That was all it took.

 

Snarl, twist, whoosh. That long body exploded towards her like a furry whip.

 

Valkyrie blinked at his claws, frozen a split hair from her jugular. 

 

"You're pretty fast," she said, plucking the nearest glass and treating it to a sniff. "Phwoar. Even after twelve of these. That's actually impressive."

 

The man's reactions might be snappy, but his brain wasn't. He goggled at her with an expression most folks reserved for the _really_ weird aliens - the ones with wriggly tendrils and cloaca for mouths.

 

That was just rude. The Valkyrie smiled brightly up at him.

 

"Best find somewhere else to point them eyes before I carve you new ones."

 

The man did her the kindness of moving his claws out of puncturing-range of an artery.

 

“You're not,” he started. "That whistle..." Then he shook his head and sank on his seat. “Never mind. The hell d'you want?”

 

"Just after a drink, but it seems you've drained the place dry." She nodded to his tower of empties. “Rough day?”

 

His claws clicked on the glass as he rose it to his lips. “The _roughest._ ”

 

“Don't think you're gonna get much out of – oh. Okay.”

 

The man reeled his tongue in again, filling his cheeks with boozy foam. He sucked morosely on his mouthful, ears drooping flat to his head.

 

"The roughest," he repeated, licking splashes from his hairy chops. "Hell, I'd take the mutiny over this. Least then _I_ were the one who fucked up. It's easier, that way, y'see - 'cause I know how to man up and say I'm sorry for it. _He_  says he'sallergic to apologies. Comes out in hives. Crock of bullshit, of course - just like all the rest."

 

The Valkyrie had no idea what he was talking about. Neither did she care - but she feigned sympathy with a clap to his skinny back. It was the perfect front, if you wanted to - say - stick an adhesive electronodule to his fur. 

 

“I've been there, buddy. Hey, you gotta name?”

 

“You got units?”

 

The Valkyrie could end this now. All it would take was the press of a button. Her electronodule left anything of a conductive skintype fitting on the floor. Occasionally (depending on species-relative bladder strength) they landed in a puddle of their own urine.

 

But hey. He seemed narked at someone, and that _Warbird_ could comfortably house two.

 

The Valkyrie leaned forwards, kicking idly under her stool. “I got scrip. I got questions too. One drink, one answer. Sound good?” He nodded. “Alright. First off, you can call me the Valkyrie.”

 

“The Valkyrie.” He licked his eyeballs again. “Big name for a small girl.”

 

“I'm not small; you're just stretched.”

 

That got his hackles up. His lips peeled off a double-layer of fangs. But before she could reach for her shock stick, the fight drained and he slumped onto the counter like it was all that kept him upright. “ _Stretched._ Something like that. I'm uh. Kraglin Obfonteri. Nice t'meet'cha.”

 

She couldn't place his accent. But then again, while she'd been well-traveled when she gallumphed out from Asgard once a week to conquer worlds at the Allfather's behest, she hadn't exactly stuck around to chat with the locals. Kraglin could be from the realm next door or the other side of the galaxy - she'd be none-the-wiser either way.

 

“Nice to meet you,” she agreed. “When I came in, you thought I was someone else. Who?”

 

Kraglin jerked his chin at the bartender.

 

She circled her hand, the chit pinched between finger and thumb. It caught the lights as they strobed off mirrored balls, which levitated a foot under the ceiling and filled the strip joint with slices of rainbow, reminding her uncomfortably of the Bifrost.

 

“Whatever he's having? Make him another.”

 

The barkeep grunted. He snagged a dirty glass, Kraglin having worked his way through the clean ones, and filled it to the brim with liqorice-black paint stripper that made the late contents of the Valkyrie's late bottle smell Puritan. Kraglin took it with a sigh.

 

“This stuff hardly works on me no more. S'terrible. Used to be I got shitfaced after one mouthful, but then...” He gestured down his body. “Well. _This._ ”

 

The Valkyrie steered them back on subject. “You had a companion?” she prompted. “Where is he? She? Still alive?”

 

She hoped they matched strength for strength; the Grandmaster paid triple for two.

 

Kraglin took a sulky sip, glaring at the bottles on the backbar, watching their reflections warp around the curvaceous colored glass. “Dunno," he said. "After the shit he pulled, cap'n deserves everything he gets.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Thank you to everyone who reads this! You can find me on tumblr atWrite-like-an-american or ask-a-ravager! I truly do appreciate EVERY click of that kudos button and every comment, no matter how small. You guys don't know how much it means. x**


	2. I Don't Know Where He Went

The Grandmaster's kingdom sung a requiem to all things good in the galaxy. By the time they reached them, they were worn out, broken, lost – much like those who wandered the wastes.

 

But all trash, no matter how grimy, could be recycled, if you only had the means. It was repurposed, reused, rebuilt into something more than itself. While it wasn't _magnificent,_ it was perhaps on its way.

 

The Grandmaster's palace was no different.The tower, cast from smelted scrap, was a Janus-faced monstrosity, laden with the totemic effigies of dead champions. Where one fell, another did rise.

 

The Valkyrie doubted Kraglin would put a scratch on their current hero: a green behemoth that the salvage crews found roaring in the Dross Sea, where SVHs spat garbage in cyclones. But who knew? He might create quite the spectacle as a support act, what with his claws and his wicked-sharp teeth.

 

Plus, judging by his staunch refusal to extrapolate on the _captain_ subject, he had enough bad blood with the guy to fuel a death match. En Dwi would be delighted.

 

“So,” she said, stretching off the bar stool with a few minor creaks. “You wanna do this the easy way or the hard way?”

 

The drink had percolated Kraglin’s liver after his twentieth glass, but she didn’t know how quickly he could sober up again. He twisted to affix her with what she hoped was a bleary stare – the lack of pupils made it difficult to tell.

 

“Whassat?”

 

“Thing is…” The Valkyrie stole an empty bottle from the counter, weighing it with a preference for her right. She was ambidextrous – you didn't undergo a thousand years of akimbo training to favor your dominant side. But she'd learned that it was best to give people a false advantage when you were about to make them fight for their freedom. “You're strong. There's business for strong men on Sakaar.”

 

Kraglin looked her up and down. It didn't feel like an ogle, although the eyeball-licking unnerved her. “Yer strong too.”

 

Nice of him to notice. The Valkyrie pretended to preen. “True. But I'd rather work for myself than the Grandmaster.”

 

“Who's the Grandmaster?”

 

“Come with me,” said the Valkyrie, bouncing her bottle off her thigh, “and you'll find out.”

 

“Huh.” Kraglin swivelled on his stool. His feet – freakishly elongated, like they got sucked halfway through a wormhole and were left there to stretch – clipped the grubby metal slabs. Claws scraped with a screech like nails on chalkboards, sharp enough to induce migraines. “What sorta work we talkin' about?”

 

The Valkyrie's ship was out of range. No chance of activating the Puppet Drive. But that didn’t matter, not when her Control Disc glinted in his thick navy fur. The moment Kraglin lunged she'd douse him with enough electricity to knock out a thunder god.

 

“Gladiatorial,” she said. No point lying. He'd find out soon enough.

 

Kraglin held her gaze. His tongue made its routine sweep. Left eye. Right.

 

The Valkyrie's bottle tapped her leg. Pat, pat, pat.

 

The patrons held their breaths.

 

Before they could start laying bets, Kraglin cracked a moon-gobbler of a yawn, showing off all eight of his canines, and slouched limply back against the bar.

 

“Sure, why the hell not? Ain't like I got nothin' better to do.”

 

Denied her daily dose of sadism, the Valkyrie dropped her remote back in her pocket.

 

“One more for the road,” she said, circling her finger at the barkeep. Then, slinging herself besides Kraglin and cheerfully bumping their shoulders together: “So long as you can handle it. It's a long march ahead, and I'm not carrying you.”

 

Kraglin’s nostrils quivered as the barman uncorked the next flagon, frothy with carbonated spirits. His teeth shone, sharp enough to take a bite out of the glass. He snatched the steaming cup as soon as the barkeep finished pouring and drained it in ten noisy gulps, chasing with a mouthful of foam. His belch stank of ethanol and acetone. “I dunno.”

 

The Valkyrie propped her cheek on her hand, watching the bobbing line of his throat. How long before they tore it out?

 

Month, she gave him. That was above average, but she meant what she said about him looking strong.

 

“What do you mean, _you don't know_?”

 

Another jerky shrug. “I ain't been in this body long enough to find out.”

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

A lot of things in this galaxy were mutable, although you rarely realised it at the time.

 

Reputation. Duty. Valor. All seemed so stone-set when you were embroiled in them, when you _believed,_ when you rode out under the Allfather’s conquering flag with your sisters by your side, your armour glistening from the sunlight that glanced between the golden spires _._

 

But take a step back and slip a bottle in your hand, and suddenly you saw the truth. Honor was pointless. Just another little lie people told themselves to give their lives meaning. Manners, chivalry, pride – it was all finite, finite as mortal life. Not even Asgardians lived forever.

 

The crux of it was, a lot of the time, everything you held to be _important_ could change at the drop of a Valkyrie through a wormhole. However, some things in this universe were far more perennial, among these being the Grandmaster's godawful taste in décor.

 

“Red and white,” she muttered. “Honestly. This is _so_ last-millennium.”

 

Kraglin morosely tested his cuffs. “I don't got color vision anymore. I mostly see hot stuff now.”

 

Valkrie raised an eyebrow. Kraglin couldn't blush, but he could squirm.

 

“Uh. Not like that.”

 

His bonds held firm. Only one prisoner had been too mighty for the Grandmaster’s restraints. Valkyrie was sometimes snapped from bad dreams by his bellows as he pounded his opponents –  _sacrifices_ might be more accurate – to sticky red pulp.

 

Kraglin sat in the welcoming chair, in which contenders were strapped for the Grandmaster's personal inspection. Most were waved on to the gladiatorial ring without comment. Some, like his current favorite, were diverted to the orgy ship to fuck their tyrant king until his shimmery robes hung in disarray and his blue lipstick smeared messily up his cheeks.

 

That same tyrant king stepped forwards to greet them, bronze face split around his beam. The Valkyrie cleared her throat.

 

“You've got a little,” she said, motioning.

 

Topaz loitered in her usual place by her master's side, doing an excellent impression of a barrel. At the Valkyrie's words, she swaggered around the Grandmaster to posture.

 

“Impertinence! You should melt her!”

 

“Darling, darling.” The Grandmaster dabbed at his mouth with the corner of one voluminous sleeve. “We have this conversation every time Scrapper 142 swings by. What is it about her that makes you so eager for her, uh, meltage?”

 

Topaz sneered. Her breath stunk worse than the stables before the Garrison conned that nice lad Hercules into a bit of manual labor. The Valkyrie smiled sweet enough to neutralize it.

 

“Everything, I'd wager,” she said, and Topaz nodded along.

 

A few hints remained, fragments of the young woman the Valkyrie once knew. The severe black bun, the furious eyes. But her lips pinched thinner than they used to, wizened by a lifetime of scowling.

 

They didn’t look as soft as they used to be.

 

En Dwi Gast flannelled away the last of his spillage. He smacked his lips, greasepaint streaking a powder-blue skidmark along the mustard silk. “Girls, please. Behave. Honestly Topaz; you always have to be the center of attention.”

 

The Valkyrie let him natter. She kept an eye on the third member of their welcome committee, who waited by the seraglio’s fragrant entrance, his dark curls glossy with oil. He wore them scraped back from his face, which was pale and angular as if it had been sculpted from intersecting icicles.

 

Somehow, she doubted Kraglin would be joining him.

 

Sure enough, the Grandmaster combed through the fur on Kraglin's shoulders, admiring how it slid under his painted nails. But when Kraglin nervously ran his tongue over his eyeballs, then flicked it up to tease the hollow of his ear-hole, he backed away.

 

“Gladiator,” he decreed, motioning for the chair to begin its trundle. “As fun as that tongue would be, it does make me queasy imagining where it might have been.”

 

Loki dressed like an Asgardian but was not one. He summoned magic to his fingertips, and his favored color scheme settled queasily in Valkyrie's entrails, striking all-too-close to a woman she once knew. He cast a discerning gaze over Kraglin as the chair chugged along its track, conveying him smoothly to the exit.

 

“Are you sure? Those eyes of his are quite exquisite.”

 

Grandmaster shuddered. “The hair would get caught between my teeth. Darling, you're more than welcome to borrow him, if he's amenable.”

 

Valkyrie ignored them. She watched Kraglin, who twisted to boggle at her before the gate slammed shut, the conveyor-mounted chair ushering him to his new home.

 

No guilt. No remorse. Better he fight and die here, in the Grandmaster's ever-revolving Escher-painting of a castle, than out in the wastes. She'd done him a favor at the end of the day. Elevated him from the scum in which he'd landed. Made him something more, something greater. A name to resound from the galleries in the arena, _Kraglin, Kraglin, Kraglin,_ until the day he fell and the next lost soul took his place.

 

Now, if only she could find this _captain Yondu_ and complete the set.

 

“Grandmaster,” she said, before he could saunter back to the lacquered halls of his harem. “Payment.”

 

“Oh, of course!” He clapped. “Topaz, attend to it. Me and Loki were in the middle of business.” Off they trotted, Loki's hand resting perilously low on the Grandmaster's slim back. His returned the gesture. If they had rear pockets, they would've tucked thumbs in them.

 

That left two.

 

The Valkyrie sized up the woman before her – older than her in frame but so much younger in years, just like all the rest.

 

“Sorry darling,” she purred, two fingers to her temple in a mocking salute. “My business is more professional than your boss's. I’ll be wanting money, not payments of the flesh.”

 

Topaz champed her teeth. But while she was a mad dog, she wasn't a disloyal one. She fished the bag of credit chits from under her cuirass and deposited the sack – warm and just a little moist – in her palm. Weighing it revealed a solid heft, enough to fund the Valkyrie's bachelorette lifestyle for the next month.

 

... _More_ than enough.

 

The Valkyrie juggled it back and forth. Her forehead furrowed.

 

Should she say something? Sakaar didn't have no highfalutin economic system with share indexes and inflation rates and compound interests and so on. Society operated on a trickle-down structure, a pyramidal structure with the Grandmaster at its peak.

 

He doled out rewards to his acquisition specialists and gladiators, who spent it on whores and barkeeps, who in turn spent it on more booze and food and spare parts in an effort to build a ship to escape this festering sty that masqueraded itself a planet. The Valkyrie had been given the same basic wage per kidnap-job since the day she arrived and delivered the slaver who found her to his employer, in chains and minus a few non-vital organs.

 

The Grandmaster found her gumption impressive, though he seemed surprised that she didn’t barge her way onto the first functional ship she found and fly it straight at the Devil’s Anus. Those like them, who watched other mortals peel and crumble like pressed flowers left out in the sun, didn’t linger on worlds like Sakaar. Not unless they had no choice.

 

Asgardians, Elders, Celestials – they preferred the Ljostalfar’s floating gardens, the Vanir marinas, the blazing forge of Nidavellir and the crystal citadel of old-Jotunheim. They wouldn’t be caught dead here, down the back of the galaxy’s couch.

 

But the Valkyrie hadn’t considered herself _Asgardian,_ not for a very long time.

 

The point was, she’d known En Dwi quite a while. For all of his eccentricities, the man liked routine. Wake up, have sex, eat food, have more sex, drink wine, perform some gratuitous exhibitionism on the palace rooftop, take a siesta, enjoy a sojourn on your favorite orgy ship, pit your gladiators against each other (with a concubine within squeezing distance in case the entertainment dragged), then supper (while spying on your population through a camera network that operated on an eclectic mixture of technology and magic), and perhaps one last little hedonistic tipple before bed.

 

You didn't find many novelties when you peaked middle age at a millennium. Why bother to look? And why bother to slip her an extra handful of credits?

 

Gift horses' mouths weren't supposed to be looked in – so went the saying. But back in the glory days, the Garrison refused all but thoroughbreds, sired by Sleipnir himself. She was allowed to be picky. And anyway, the last place she wanted to find herself was in the Grandmaster's debt.

 

“You overpaid.”

 

Topaz turned. She had about as much humor as the wardrobe she resembled.

 

“Half's for the next one,” she grunted. “Reports say some blue guy with a magic stick is causing trouble in the southern quadrangle – near where you picked up your latest friend.”

 

Valkyrie rewound through her conversations with Kraglin thus far; his mopey silences and the general air of malcontent that seethed whenever she tried to steer conversation to his captain.

 

“Do these reports mention if he whistles?”

 


	3. So I'm Gonna Drink My Money

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Alternate title for this fic: Yondu and Kraglin attempt to drink their problems away. It doesn't work.**

A wealth of opinions on the subject of  _Yondu Udonta_ were posited by everyone who'd ever met the man. Few were complimentary. Pick a game and he'd cheated at it: cards, games of chance, snooker, coin tosses, pinball, tic-tac-toe. He lied whenever it suited him, and sometimes (so it was muttered) just for fun. He had been known to kill people for refusing to haggle with him over the price of trinkets (while he insisted that had been an accident, the general consensus was that people did _not_ just fall upwards into extractor fans, not unless there had been a serious malfunction with the gravity).

 

But there was good as well as bad. Right?

 

Not every varmint-sucking bottom feeder with a six-figure bounty on their heads could successfully save a planet from incineration-via-Infinity-Stone, defeat a Celestial, and fake his own death all within the same year. The only problem with this impressive tally of victories was that unless he wanted to undo the last achievement on his list, he couldn't brag about them.

 

At least, not to anyone from the Andromedarian constellations. Sakaar collected a more eclectic variety of garbage. This meant Yondu could retell Ego's vanquishing and all that happened thereafter without fretting about word finding its way back to a certain Ravager Admiral, who'd be _so_ _disappointed_ if he discovered the lengths Yondu went to in order to avoid his forgiveness.

 

“An' then... An' then he used... It! The, the light! An' he smashed that dumbass into a wall an' turned into his Pock-Man and it were fuckin' awesome _._ ”

 

His enraptured audience held up a hand. “Okay buddy. Let me get this straight. You kidnap a child” -

 

“ _Acquire him_.”

 

"From an uncontacted planet, because his dad's a murderous psycho who eats his own kids.”

 

Yondu nodded along, having left out several choice details about how those kids wound up within range of Ego's energy-whips in the first place.

 

“That's very altruistic of you. I thought you were supposed to be a scary space-pirate type? Y'know, bang-bang, guns blazing, stand and deliver, your money or your wife?”

 

“Philly-anthropy,” said Yondu, as soberly as a man could when his blood to alcohol ratio rested at a solid 1:3, “is my middle name.”

 

His listener eyed the door. “Well, Yondu Phillyanthropy Udonta. This has been lovely, but I've got to head. You know how it is. Things to do, places to see, revolutions to start...”

 

Oh no, he didn't. Where was the fun in being maudlin if you didn't have anyone to moan at? As _verbally_ convincing his buddy to stay sounded like far too much hassle, Yondu opted for the easy route.

 

He pinched his lips together and _blew._

 

The note was high and sweet. It stayed more stable than the rest of him as he staggered to a vague semblance of upright, looming over their wobbly, sick-stained table to posture in his new friend's face.

 

Kronan, his race was. Not a bunch Yondu had the pleasure of knowing. But Yondu'd whistled through bigger boulders - or so he claimed, and the Kronan was wise enough not to call bluff.

 

“On second thoughts, I'll finish my drink.”

 

Yondu swiped his glass.

 

“Or you will. Either-or – really, it's fine.”

 

“Korg,” Yondu slurred. He reined in the arrow by a quarter-inch - just far enough that it stopped leaving scorch marks. “Thas yer name, right? _Korg.”_

 

Korg nodded.

 

“Sounds almost like 'Krag',” said Yondu wistfully. “Why was it ya came up to me again?” He made a sloppy attempt at a leer. “You wanna fuck, or...?”

 

“What? No! No, I...” Korg pointed to the pamphlet currently acting as Yondu's coaster. Being as the majority of the spirits aimed at Yondu's mouth had sloshed over the table top instead, there wasn't much left of it. The paper degraded into soggy crumbs, clinging to the underside of the glass. “I just, I saw your cool weapon, and was wondering whether you'd want to join my revolution to prevent the Grandmaster's tyranny! But you're obviously, um, rather emotional, and -”

 

“I ain't soft!”

 

“I... I didn't say that. Emotions are good, y'know? Emotions are healthy!”

 

Yondu subsided onto his chair, scowling. “You'd be a shitty Ravager, y'know that?”

 

“Ravager. That's your space pirate band, right?”

 

“Used to be.” Yondu performed a ritualistic double chest thump, looking proud for all of three seconds before he slid down his chair so his chin lay flush to his collarbones. “ _Used to be,_ I was the boss of a... of a whole faction! At five fuckin' years. Y'know how rare that is?”

 

Korg furrowed his pebbledash brow. “Your species must age remarkably fast.”

 

“Five years outta the slave camps,” continued Yondu as if he didn't hear. “Only just knew I was allowed to act like a _fuckin'_ sentient person. An' he shoved me in cap'n garb an' of _course_ I said yes because what kid who just learned the stars-damned meanin' of freedom wouldn't? He offered me flarkin' _power_ when I didn't know _shit,_ and the rest of it – yeah! That were my fault. But _that?_ That were on _him._ Y'hear me? _Him!_ ”

 

“Hm,” said Korg, now liberally flecked with spit. Yondu's tirade hadn't dislodged the arrow. It twizzled on invisible threads, a constant swelter against Korg's left ear-hole. “'Him'? Is that this. Uh. Kraglin?”

 

“No! No it ain't _fuckin'_ Kraglin. Kraglin's gone, cause I pulled the same fuckin’ shit all over again! An' this time with _his_ fuckin' kid! The hell was I... the hell was I _thinkin'?_ ” His eyes swam to Korg – or at least, one of two Korgs, currently wavering in concussed confusion on the opposite chair. “He don't even _like_ brats! But his freaky fuckin' _instinctual breedy... drive..._ shit _..._ I dunno... That _thing_ , all it wants to do is knot, knot, knot. Y'know how much my cunt hurt after the first time?”

 

If Korg could blanch, he would've. “I really don't want to...”

 

“A lot! So of course I say I'm toppin' from now on, but it's fuckin' _boring_ an' he don't like it much neither, so I tells him we can just suck each other off until we's too old to get it up anymore, and..."

 

Having been shanghaied into acting audience for Yondu's long and increasingly graphic rant, Korg knew better then to plead for a subject change. He prompted one instead.

 

“So, Kraglin hates kids, right?”

 

Yondu painted morose circles on the tabletop with his nail, stirring the pamphlet to mulch. “Yeah. Can't stand the lil' blighters. An' like, we already got Peter, y'know?”

 

“Ah!” Korg knew that name. “Your kidnapped Terran!”

 

“ _Acquired._ Less-than-legally. Whatever. I died for that brat once already, an' I'm hopin' he can stay outta trouble long enough to let me go out natural-like next time. Where was I? Right – yeah, he ain't good enough for mister fuzzy. Oh no. We ain't biologically compatible, and he's gettin' all gloomy about it, so's I tell him... I tell him what I did, the deal I made with the Collector. Thinkin' he'd be happy, y'know?”

 

Korg nodded again. That seemed safest - especially since he was engaging in a long and drawn-out mental scream. 

 

All sorts of nonsense fell from the mouth of a lush. Korg tried not to take what drunk men said too seriously. But this man – Yondu Phillanthropy Udonta – arrow-whistling basket case though he may be, made a disturbing amount of sense.

 

 _Collector. Grandmaster._ Brothers from an ancient civilization, its heyday long since passed. The Elder race of the universe. If Yondu'd picked a fight with Tivvan, he was definitely the wrong guy for Korg's band. They'd have full hands deposing  _one_ immortal tyrant.

 

“He weren't happy,” Yondu revealed, as if this might come as a shock. He slung back his glass (not that there was anything left in it) and belched for effect. “He weren't happy _at all._ Shit got said an'... An' I told him the truth, an' now he won't even _fuckin'_ look at me.”

 

Words expended, he promptly melted on the tabletop, beard-down in the puddle of moonshine. It spread like an infection, soaking the pamphlet on Korg's side of the table too. That curled, its edges disintegrating faster than tissue paper dipped in the sink.

 

Damn. That was his last one. Korg gulped. “You and that Collector,” he asked, just to be certain. “No bad blood there, right?” 

 

Plip, plip, plip. Drops pattered to the floor, moats forming around Yondu's slime-shone boots. “Nah. We're square.”

 

“Thank the gods.” 

 

Okay. No more _counselling._ Korg came here for a reason. A _purpose._

 

While the arrow might've added a charcoal finish to his cheek-nodules, Yondu had yet to act on any of his more imaginative threats (which involved sticking Korg like a pig on a spit, testing whether his balls were as rocky as the rest of him and - somewhat bizarrely - singing a song about Peeny Colatas on repeat). Korg would never forgive himself if he didn't give him that last little push.

 

“So. Um. Slave, huh?”

 

Yondu's eyes thinned. It would be more terrifying if he could focus on Korg rather than the space over his shoulder. “Who's askin'?”

 

“Me.” Korg shifted uncomfortably, earning a warning creak from his chair. “The guy you've been talking to since everyone else ran away.”

 

More like talking _at,_ if he was being honest. Korg decided against mentioning that.

 

The bar door batted lightly on its hinges. Wind stirred across the junk piles, bringing with it the familiar stench of putrefaction. Home sweet home – at least, until Korg's uprising took off and the population of this rock commandeered a convoy of spaceworthy ships to fly through the Devil's Anus and back to the free galaxy, which (according to the tales of those who'd arrived through an SVH rather than being born in the wastes) was chock-a-block with simple, comforting pleasures, like  _health and safety regulations_ and  _union action_ and  _job security in the civil service._

 

“Look,” he said, when Yondu decided drooling on the tabletop was a better pastime than replying. “We have slaves here too. Broken men, hurt men.”

 

Yondu frowned. “I ain't _broken._ ”

 

“Men in need of _salvation_. You could help us. With this arrow of yours, you could be great. Liberate the slaves, strike down the Grandmaster...”

 

“Or,” drawled the woman slouched against the doorframe. “You could cut your losses, save me having to taze you, and come along quietly. Your choice.”

 

Korg's jaw dropped. He bounded from the chair, booting straight through the nearest table leg in the process. It slumped to one side, Yondu following it.

 

"You! The Valkyrie!” He froze, glancing at the arrow. “Uh, sorry. I'm supposed to stay sitting. Forgot about that.”

 

Yondu was too busy scraping himself out of his booze puddle to care. “Who the fuck're you?”

 

“Your new employer.”

 

Yondu laughed. It wasn't an especially nice one. Too yellow, for a start, and far too raspy, like he'd swallowed a wasps' nest. “I ain't _employed_ to nobody but myself, girlie.”

 

Her smile cranked wider. “I was hoping you'd say that.”

 

Oh hell. This was bad. This was really,  _really_ bad.

 

Korg was young, he was on the rise, and he'd managed to give out three whole pamphlets before Yondu collared him for their little chinwag. He couldn't risk a face off with a Scrapper! Especially not  _this one._

 

Maybe... maybe he'd let Yondu handle this.

 

“Good talk, buddy." Korg motioned towards the rear exit. The door loitered down a grotty passage past the bogs, lit by several glow worms who buzzed around a dusty lantern in gloomy figures of eight. “Being arrested would kinda put a crimp in my revolution, so if you don't mind, I'm just gonna...”

 

“Arrested? Yer the police?” Yondu creaked to stand, rubbing the sticky crust on his greatcoat. “I _hate_ the police.”

 

“Uh.” Korg shrunk as much as was possible for a man of his dimensions. “This is gonna get violent, isn’t it?”

 

“Most probably,” the Valkyrie agreed. Her eyes didn’t stray from Udonta, clocking him as the biggest threat in the room. Korg, in contrast, had two potential hazards to focus on.

 

He reversed along the corridor, almost tripping on a box of old bottles, thick with bluebottles and stinking strongly of beer hops. He caught himself on the wall, leaving a sizeable dent, and, in a chalky blizzard of plaster dust, clawed his way into the sun.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

The Valkyrie didn't watch the giant make his exit. He was small fry – regardless of his size - and, judging by the remains of the pamphlet that was glued to the table, stupid small fry at that.

 

 _Revolution_. Honestly – what nonsense would the mortals come up with next?

 

She activated her Puppet Drive. Overhead, her ship tilted on a steep decline. Its guns trained on the infrared shape in front of her: a small target, head augmented by a bright white fin.

 

“Let's get this over with. I gave your furry friend the chance to come quietly. While it's only fair to offer you the same...” She cranked her hands around the holographic controls. Gun ports unfolded from her ship's undercarriage, charging with a mechanical whine. “I'm in the mood for a punch-up.”

 

Yondu frowned. “Krags?”

 

Dammit - she thought that would rile him. “Currently in the gladiatorial quarters beneath the Grandmaster's palace.” She stood deceptively loose, but she'd scoped the room on entry like Guðr taught her. A table stood within easy diving distance. She could reach it, if she needed cover. “You'll join him soon. I think we'll pit you against each other – that could be quite the show.”

 

Yondu's chuckle didn't quite raise hairs along the back of her neck. However, if she hadn't been the Valkyrie who fought Laufey and Hela, who wooed Sigurd and planted the finishing blow on Fafnir (no matter what the legends claimed), those hairs might have quivered, just a little.

 

“Sounds fun, sweetheart. Wouldn't say no takin' that a-hole down a peg. Look – it ain't _tradin' in children_ if ya hand 'em over before they're born, right? So _tech-nick-ly,_ I weren't breakin' Code. Not that time – not again. He ain’t got no cause to be so pissed off.”

 

Valkyrie tried to clobber that into sensical shape in her head. She failed and gave up in short order. “I'm not here to talk.” Her engines droned closer. Target: locked. Ready to rain hell on her command.

 

Udonta didn't notice the overhead vwoom of thrusters on hover, or else he was too prideful to care. Either could work to her advantage. “Yer tellin' me Kraglin's a slave?”

 

“Voluntarily. He opted in.”

 

“Huh. I should prolly go rescue him.”

 

Valkyrie ground her teeth. “If that's what it takes to get you to _fight me..._ ”

 

Yondu's grin formed slowly, creasing dimples into weathered blue cheeks and revealing more metals than were stocked in the average dwarvish foundry.

 

“Sorry, darlin'. No can do. I gotta revolution to join.”

 

“Seriously?" And she'd hoped he was the smart one. "You expect this child's game to get off the ground? That Korg guy – he's no leader!”

 

Yondu widened his eyes, faux-innocent. “Who says he'd be leadin'?”

 

Enough of this. If this fool thought she would let him saunter out of here, he was far too arrogant for his own good. Valkyrire activated her gun turrets, fist clenching at the end of her glowing vambrace.

 

Ratta-tat-tat.

 

The ceiling exploded.

 

Splintered steel stabbed the floor, a hail of plasma and flak.

 

Valkyrie lunged for her table. She expected Yondu to copy her - at least until the air cleared of plasma bolts and flying masonry.

 

Shards of I-beam pummelled them, smashing glasses, crushing tables, snapping chairs into twigs. Some landed sharp-end first, cutting the floor like runny butter. Others clashed and clattered louder than cymbals, rattling to stillness in the settling dust.

 

Valkyrie poked her head from behind cover. There stood Yondu, brushing off his lapels in the midst of the chaos. He swayed slightly, but as far as she could tell, his only injury was inebriation and that ridiculous pride.

 

His arrow made a last circuit. It deflected the rafter that threatened to bash his implant through his skull - which swung on a single nail, making the remains of the roof wobble in synchrony.

 

“Thanks fer clearin' my exit, girlie!” 

 

The Valkyrie snarled. She wheeled her ship about for the next barrage, intending to rid him of a few favorite limbs - wasn't like he needed them to put on a good show. But before she could raise the guns, Yondu's eyes snapped to her with preternatural, predatory accuracy.

 

Then, slowly, he raised his gaze to look at something over her head.

 

Valkyrie's stomach sank. She followed the path of his eyes with her own. What she saw was far from reassuring: the explosion had kicked loose one end of the baulk, leaving it wedged precariously on the far wall in a wobbling gantry. On top of it was piled... Well, pretty much everything remaining that constituted a 'roof'; the word being used here in the loosest fashion to describe a barrier between earth and sky. 

 

That barrier was made of a helluva lot of broken concrete.

 

"Don't you dare..."

 

Yondu dipped her a wink. Then he flashed that shit-eating grin and kicked the nearest wall.

 

 _Hard_.

 

“Shit,” Valkyrie managed. It was lost to the rumbling avalanche as, for the second time that day, a large piece of masonry introduced itself to her skull. 

 

By the time she huffed, sweated, swore and wriggled to freedom (the verbs being arranged in order of most to least dignified), Udonta was long gone. Not through either of the doors – although the frames were all that remained of this institution, islands amid a sea of debris and spurting beer kegs. But Valkyrie, shielding her eyes from the wobbly haze of the sun, swore she saw a red glint swooping high above.

 

“Lost him. Dammit.”

 

Never mind. If the man meant what he said about becoming a revolutionary, their paths would cross sooner rather than later. Valkyrie, battered, bruised, and sporting two cracked Puppet Drive gloves and one very sore temple, was looking forwards to it. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **While I really enjoy writing this, unfortunately there... obviously isn't much of an audience. Unless one manifests, I'll put this fic on hiatus and keep the rest of it stored in my vault. Thank you to everyone who has commented thus far! If you want to leave a comment, now's your chance.**


	4. I'm Not Gonna Pay His Rent

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Minor time-skip to get us to the action!**

Smelt like a day for revolution.

 

Tangy. Almost tannin-like, in fact; a winey soak that had been drummed into the clay by acid rain. The sun, having recently emerged from behind clouds the color and consistency of dishwater, soon set to the task of baking the scent in place. It trapped it in the street mud, to be released whenever it cracked under the heel of a boot.

 

The slum was a convoluted habitat, composed of several unique microclimates. Their chosen alleyway remained moist. It was overlooked by two leaning stacks of shanty-houses, whose shadows shrunk gradually as the sun neared its peak.

 

Pamphlets mulched in the gutter, a papier-mâché quagmire, dye swirling in sluggish murals. Yondu stomped through it as he awaited the denizens of Sakaar who he had bribed, hustled, and strong-armed into showing up.

 

The trick to a revolt wasn’t convincing people that overthrowing their Emperor was in their best interest. It was making them more afraid of you than they were of him.

 

Unfortunately for Yondu, the Grandmaster could be very persuasive.

 

Yondu checked his chronometer for the third time. “Where are they,” he growled.

 

Korg postured without quite meaning too. Guy that big, he could look menacing if he sat about making macramé. Yondu refused to be jealous.

 

“Quit wavin',” he snapped at Korg. “We’re s’pposed to be professionals, dammit.”

 

“Sorry, man.” Korg rubbed the back of his neck, abashed. “Just saying hi to my mom.”

 

“Huh?” Yondu scanned the streets. They were barren as the wastes of Morag. The only movement came from the roadside kiosks, whose sun-bleached awnings billowed in the fetid breeze. Some particularly greasy specimen of local cuisine sizzled away, varnishing the sides of its vat in oil. Its minder had long since made himself scarce, following the rest of the populace. Faces peeped from behind shutters, glinting fast as Kraglin's knives.

 

But of mothers? No sign.

 

“The hell’re you talkin’ about?”

 

Korg frowned. “Don’t be rude! She can hear you.”

 

A man emerged from the shadows. He stood beside a nearby rock pile, one hand flung up to guard against the noon-day sun. He looked Xandarian, and weedy at that.

 

“That guy's yer mama?” Yondu winced, looking Korg up and down. “Ouch. Like shitting out a boulder.”

 

“Huh? What? No!” Korg’s features landslided into horror. “ _No!_ He don’t even got the right bits! He’s a dude!”

 

Now would be a poor time to bring up his own anatomy, variously described as 'interesting' and 'kinda freaky' by partners-past. Korg was content to continue unprovoked:

 

“Anyway, that’s my mom’s _boyfriend_ , Brad.” He ducked in, lowering his voice. “I can’t stand him. He only loves her for her looks.”

 

Yondu nodded. “Uh-huh.”

 

That meant that pile of rocks must be…

 

No. Surely not. But, if he concentrated, couldn’t he make out features, among the overlapping stones? A piggy nose, sunken eyes? The scraps wrapped around it might’ve been a toga once. And there, at the bottom of the pile – those protrusions. Could they be dumpy little feet?

 

“Her. Uh. Looks, you say?”

 

“Of course! She’s the height of Kronan beauty. Now, _wave._ ”

 

Yondu, amused, did so. He received a wiggle of stone lozenges in return. As for Brad – well. The guy sure didn't look like he packed a diamond codpiece.

 

“Ouch,” said Yondu, more emphatically.

 

Speeders sped from the sky before Korg could scold him. They were sparkling things, ritzy in comparison to the Sakaaran low-town. Sunlight spangled from their bodies: slim upright ovals, a jet wubbing quietly beneath. A pilot was just visible behind each reflective glass screen.

 

Yondu pasted a bunch of guys in similar headgear back on Xandar, during that whole nonsense with the Stone.

 

 _Paper people,_ he thought, and smirked.

 

“Halt!” yelled one.

 

“Desist!” yelled the other. A flurry of private intercom communication ensued. The first activated his mic once more, nodding to his partner in mutual consensus.

 

“Halt _and_ desist! You are disturbing the peace!”

 

Yondu jerked his thumb at the empty street. “Makin’ it, more like. You oughta be thankin’ us – ain’t been this quiet in decades.”

 

“The _point,_ ” said Number One, his ship bobbing testily mid-air, “is that you are mustering with the intent to usurp the Grandmaster. You will be obliterated!”

 

“Well, if ya don’t mind me sayin’ so, ain’t oblitty-ration a bit extreme?” Yondu nodded to Korg. “We’s just two guys, y’know? Hangin’ out with his mom and step-dad…”

 

“He’s not my _stepdad_!”

 

“Whatever.” Yondu sent the pile of rocks another wave. It paid him no heed. In fact, it shambled hastily for the nearest alleyway, dragging a long and limber pole of Brad along.

 

“Huh. Guess they had someplace to be.” He turned back to the killjoys. “Point is, this here’s practically a family gatherin’. We ain’t breakin’ no laws.”

 

“Sakaar doesn’t have _laws_ ,” came the prim rejoinder. “There is only the Grandmaster, and he has issued an edict demanding your swift and painful death.”

 

“Huh. Well, m’fraid I don’t very much like bein’ told what to do.”

 

Korg, having satisfied himself that his mother was safe, bounced hopefully at Yondu’s side. “Is this where you whip out your arrow?”

 

“Stars, yer a fast mover. Buy me a drink first.”

 

Korg was too nervous to laugh. He managed a nasal titter that shook the leaves of slate under his chin. “You stole my last drink. D-does that count?”

 

The ships descended. Their jets burnt red hot, blasting the mud to peppercorn, and their shadows slanted over the uneven ground, shortened and intensified by the high bright sun. They crawled up Yondu’s shins as if he’d stepped into a tar pit.

 

Closer. Closer.

 

“Only cause yer cute,” Yondu told Korg, and whistled.

 

Air shot between crooked teeth. The note was sharp, high, shrill enough to leave Korg grimacing, and a crack echoed up and down the terraces as every eavesdropper clapped hands over their ears.

 

Not a moment too soon.

 

Most ships had a sturdy internal structure. They didn’t explode as soon as you whizzed a radioactive arrow through them and out the other side. But thrusters meant engines, and engines meant a fuel core. You just had to _aim._

 

So, in short, if the difference between ‘science’ and ‘blowing shit up’ was writing down your results, then Yondu was not doing science.

 

Boom.

 

More like _ka-ka-kaboom,_ actually.

 

It hit in waves: light, noise, heat, shock, debris. Shrapnel skewered the earth. It churned the mud, shredding the washing lines that crisscrossed the street.

 

A towel landed in the bubbling oil-pot to deep-fry with the dumpling. The punch of the explosion knocked corrugated slats from roofs and shivered away the windowpanes. The brightness seared through eyelids and upflung hands, and tatters of burning fabric drifted in the wind, blowing like feathers from a burst eiderdown.

 

Yondu, who jumped behind Korg when the deadly hail began, peeped around his waist and issued another whistle, this time in admiration. They'd blown out an entire terrace. He waved enthusiastically at the fubsy Kronan woman hightailing it into the slum.

 

“Hey, yer mom ain’t dead!”

 

“Luckily for you,” gasped Korg. Kronans didn’t sweat, but when they got nervous their pebbledash _rattled_. “Oh, this is bad. This is bad-bad- _bad._ Dammit, Yondu. I was supposed to be leader of this revolt. If we’d done it my way” –

 

“We’d still be in shit. Anyway, yer the one what wanted me to whistle.”

 

“That was the heat of the moment! Look, you just destroyed two of the Grandmaster’s peacekeeping ships. It’ll have flagged up at the palace by now, and they’ll be sending out…”

 

Yondu squinted at the sky, one hand up against the sun. “An armada of mercs?” he asked.

 

Korg snapped his fingers. “Yes, that! Wait, how did you…” He looked at the horizon. “Oh. Oh _no_. No, this hasn’t gone the way I wanted it!”

 

The swarm approached, and hey; would you look at that. Weren’t that a familiar dual-turbo Swooper class, augmented with junk and warpaint?

 

He turned her down once. But Yondu had a goal beyond causing trouble. Perhaps it'd be easier to let that smirky Asgardian chick take him to the palace, rather than fighting his way in with an army? Especially as that army had yet to show?

 

This led the way to more important questions, like: what would Kraglin do after Yondu freed him? Fling himself into his arms, Yondu decided. Given his recent growth spurt, Yondu might wind up flattened, but hey. It would be worth it.

 

It would all be worth it in the end. Kraglin’s weight pinning him as he twisted, winding blue fur between his fingers, rocking together until they forgot all that nonsense about _child trafficking,_ and _our own damn kid_ and _dammit sir, you promised me, never again._

 

“It don’t count,” Yondu muttered to himself, whistling his arrow to hover between them and the oncoming ships. “ _It don’t count._ Not when the brat ain’t born yet. That don’t count, it don’t.”

 

“You realize you’re talking out loud,” Korg stage-whispered, although he gulped when Yondu's narrow red eyes snapped to him. “Uh. I guess you’ll want to face the oncoming army on your lonesome? Lone Ranger, and all that.”

 

That caught Yondu’s attention. “How’d you know a Terran movie?”

 

“A what-now?” Great. Quill’s natter had infiltrated his consciousness far enough that his translator picked up on it. Yondu rolled his eyes at himself and the galaxy in general.

 

“Nah,” he said, looping his arm through Korg’s. “You're stayin’ right where you are.”

 

“Um.” Korg tried to pull away. It should’ve been easy, but he didn’t actually want to hurt him. Yondu clung on. “Why?”

 

“Because we planned this together.”

 

“I planned it, actually. You just swanned in at the last moment and tried to control everything. And _no one showed up,_ so congratulations for that.”

 

So high-stress situations brought out the sass. Thank flark. Yondu had been worried that Korg's rocky shell hid no spine whatsoever.

 

“I think that was the pamphlets,” he confided, keeping his arm locked best he could around Korg’s bicep and standing on his foot for good measure as the planes soared overhead, spiralling like vultures, waiting for one of their number to open fire and kick off the fray. “Weren’t enough of them. And even they weren’t peppy, y’know? Next time, ya need to use a bigger font.”

 

“A bigger _font?_ You were _threatening_ people!”

 

Ratta-tatta-boom. A rale of gunfire sputtered overhead.

 

Korg ducked. Yondu didn’t.

 

It scythed safely by, decimating the squat-hole opposite and the nosy civilians lurking within. Their screams sounded reedy compared to the bass roar above. Thunder condensed, pounding to a war-beat that pumped blood into Yondu’s muscles and pure adrenaline to his heart.

 

 _Here it comes._ He grinned, tongue darting between the jagged snaggles of his teeth. It stroked down the flakes on his lips, tipping them with moisture. Just enough to whistle.

 

“We can get out of this, right?”

 

Korg, judging by the way he eyed up the end of the alley, contemplated hoisting Yondu under the armpits for a mad dash at freedom. But the Grandmasters’ men had a birds’ eye view. They would be Orloni in a maze, scrabbling at dead-ends and blinded by corners, mown down by plasma fire from above.

 

“You can just whip out your magic stick” –

 

“Look, can ya stop talkin’ about it like that? I were jokin’ bout the drink. Yer too young for me, baby.”

 

– “And kill them all! Right?”

 

Yondu scowled. “Don’t be stupid. Why’d I kill 'em when I wanna go with them?”

 

“But – but they’re the enemy?”

 

“They’re my ticket into the palace, that’s what they are.”

 

“B-b-but…” Oh, bless him. He was a slow type; this must be a lot to process. Yondu unwound from his impersonation of a wheel-clamp and patted him on the shoulder. He could just about reach, if he stretched.

 

“S’okay. It’s all going according to plan.”

 

“What plan?” Korg wailed. “I thought you were helping me with my revolution!”

 

“I was, until five minutes ago. No one came – so. New plan needed. And it goes something like this.”

 

Yondu stuck his hands in the air. He rubbed his tongue along the back of his teeth, tasting hot metal and cold spit, as well as the grease from the last portion of street food he filched off the vendor by the bar. He whistled a descending arpeggio, reeling the arrow back as if its red thread were attached to a bobbin.

 

It snicked into its holster. The straps had already rubbed calluses into his hips and side, from where he’d allowed them to soften during the months after his death.

 

Or not-death, as it turned out. Rumors on that subject had been grossly exaggerated.

 

“Howdy, y’all! M’name’s Yondu Udonta – second-in-command of this here rebellion.”

 

“ _Second-in-command_?” Korg hissed, at the same time an equally disbelieving tone issued from one of the pods.

 

“Rebellion?”

 

Yondu pointed at the scattered remains of his victims. A few bodily bits stuck up, hands and elbows and the like. They were charcoal-black and smoking, crumbling at the extremities.

 

“Yeah. We just killed those guys.”

 

“ _We?_ ” Korg looked damn near ready to bust a blood vessel. Did Kronans even _have_ blood? Yondu had yet to stab one – but who knew? Depending on how long he spent in this Grandmaster’s arena, he might find out.

 

“Yep!” he yelled to their audience. “Thas right. Good, strong, fighters. Shame there weren’t no one here to watch. Woulda made for some mighty fine entertainment!”

 

A chitter of static sounded as the pilots conversed, followed by an exorbitant sigh.

 

“Hang back,” said the Valkyrie, voice distorted through the mic. “The blue idiot’s mine. Any of you fuckers touch him, you answer to me.”

 

“Oh no,” Korg whimpered. Yondu rubbed his hands.

 

“ _Finally._ ”

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

“What made you change your mind?”

 

They were ushered, rather rougher than necessary, into the Valkyrie’s hold. Given as the chick had made her intentions clear regarding tasering him the moment he annoyed her, Yondu decided to keep his mouth shut.

 

The capsule she’d attached to his neck sparked occasionally, frissons of electric frizzling his translator and turning her words to garble before they snapped back into sensible speech. If Valkyrie had no fondness for backtalk, she liked being ignored less still.

 

She shoved Yondu’s shoulders, forcing him onto the seat besides Korg. Korg took up two of the three chairs, wedged side-by-side in the underbelly of her ship. They were designed with restraint in mind – wrist and ankle cuffs that adjusted to-fit.

 

“I _said,_ what made you change your mind? I know a feigned defeat when I see one.”

 

Yondu shrugged, mostly to get comfy. Those cuffs pinched something rotten - and Korg must be suffering worse, seeing as the poor sod was sat on one. He studied the girl from under his brows. Her body might be young, but her eyes… Stars, the things those eyes had seen.

 

“You ain’t all that into this Grandmaster freak, are ya?”

 

Valkyrie methodically disengaged her puppet-drive, tugging the belts of her gauntlets through the snake clasps on the underside of her wrist. “He pays well.”

 

Yondu damn near chortled, trapped hands twitching like he wanted to slap his leg. “’Pays well’! Oh yeah, I’ve used that excuse plenty. But what I wanna know is, if I was hype-oh-thetickly gonna tell ya that I’m only headed into the Grandmaster’s palace so I can fetch my dumbass mate, get a good fight, and maybe kill that slavemongerin' shit into the bargain, would you give a damn?”

 

Korg drew a sharp breath. “Dude! You’re not supposed to _tell_ her!”

 

Yondu ignored him. He focused on the Valkyrie, red eyes fixed on brown.

 

“Well?” he asked softly. “What d’you say?”

 

Valkyrie couldn’t look more bored if you carved her from wood. “I wanted a fight,” she said simply. “You surrendered. I don’t give a fuck what you do. I deliver jackasses like you to the Grandmaster – what happens after? None of my business.”

 

That sort of unscrupulous, Yondu could respect.

 

“Y’know what?” He plastered on his most winning grin. “I think you an’ me might be friends after all, girlie.”

 

Valkyrie remained uncharmed. “Don’t push it.”

 

She stalked into the ship’s glass nosecone, flinging herself onto the antique suspension chair and hooking a bottle. Punching in the lift-off sequence one-handed, she arranged her boots on the dashboard and waggled the taser at the pair strapped in the loading bay.

 

“You try anything? Zap. You speak outta line? Zap. I decide I can’t be asked to spare the fuel quarts to take you to the palace?”

 

“Zap,” Yondu finished. He tipped Korg a wink. “Promises, promises.”

 

Korg looked like he wanted to piss.

 

“Oh stars,” he whispered, flattened to the back of his conjoined chair as Valkyrie cranked the ignition and they shot towards the Grandmaster's aerie: the stack of scowling totem heads that glowered out over his realm. “I didn’t say bye to mom.”

 

Yondu couldn’t free his hand to clasp his shoulder. Korg stared glass-eyed into the middle distance; he most likely wouldn’t notice anyway.

 

“Don’t worry,” he said, budging his hip. “You ain’t gonna die. Not unless ya do somethin’ stupid.”

 

“Like _that’s_ reassuring. Stupid is my speciality.”

 

“Point.”

 

“Talking outta line!” bellowed the Valkyrie, unsticking from her bottle with a smack. Yondu blinked at her, the very picture of ugly old innocence.

 

“Me?”

 

The shock was no way near as fun as he’d hoped.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Thank you SO MUCH to all you lovely folks who left comments last chapter! Special shout-out to Name1, who's always ready with something lovely to say. You guys motivated me to keep going with this baby. I write for myself, but I only upload fic for comments/kudos, so getting only one comment on chapter two was pretty disheartening. But you've shown me that there is still an audience for this fic! I'm so grateful to everyone who took the time to write a comment, no matter how small, to show me that they've read and enjoyed this wacky adventure.**


	5. I Got A Brand New Attitude

When his eyes un-gummed he found himself trussed to a board, restrained by wrists, ankles, waist and neck.

 

Not that the last one mattered to him, obviously. He didn't still wake up every now and then thrashing with a phantom weight crushing his throat, and damn near whistle Kraglin through when he realized he wasn't alone in his bed. Nope, nosiree.

 

Especially not nowadays. He and Kraglin hadn’t shared a bed since Yondu came clean. And sure, this was Kraglin's fault – Kraglin who stormed off after the crash and told Yondu in no uncertain terms it was over, Kraglin who got himself captured, Kraglin who was relying on Yondu to rescue him but probably wouldn’t thank him for it (the ungrateful no-good nerf-herding _prick_ ). But Yondu wanted him back more than he wanted to eke out this grudge match. He hadn't clocked much practice at being the Mature Guy – usually, it was the other way around. For Kraglin though, he made an effort.

 

Or he would, if they only quit hitting him.

 

“Hey!” Smack. A firework burst his cheek. The Grandmaster's toady – lovely woman named Topaz, who would do a marvellous impersonation of a wardrobe if wardrobes scowled – slapped his face in the opposite direction. “Wake up! You are being addressed!”

 

“Huh?” Yondu squinted down at his leathers. While crustier than ever – tasers were never beneficial to bowel function – they remained intact. “No, hon. ‘Fraid I've still got all my clothes on. Where’s Korg?”

 

Topaz peeled her lips off her teeth. Before she could exchange her smacks for punches, the Grandmaster chuckled. Yondu glanced about, as much as he could with the neck brace. He found himself under the scrutiny of a skinny gray-haired man, clad in gold flounce, face painted like a whore on Ka’ashka.

 

Huh. Weedier than expected. Kinda like Kraglin before his repressed genome burst out in flurry of navy fur and carnivorous urges against Yondu’s person. Not the sort of guy who commanded an Empire by fear.

 

But while Yondu had never heard of Caligula, he knew the theory. Looks deceived, more often than not.

 

The Grandmaster stroked a staff, his nails chirping quietly against the crystal. Somewhere, somehow, for some reason, Terran techno music boomed on half-blast.

 

“I think you should melt him,” growled Topaz.

 

“Bet ya say that to all the prisoners.”

 

“She does,” the Grandmaster agreed. “But I don't want to melt him, Topaz. I don't have to melt everyone we meet, that's – that's just _rude_.”

 

He trotted towards them, his pet Asgardian glaring at Yondu the whole while. Yondu offered up a genial smile in response, near-beatific. The Grandmaster scrunched his nose.

 

“Yeurk. Your teeth need a lot of work, don't they? What - what did you say he was again, Valkyrie, dear?”

 

“Pirate,” Yondu explained, before his captor got the chance. He licked his jagged incisors. “We don't got no dental.”

 

“I – I see. Hm. Choices, choices. Do I put you in the harem or the gladiator ring? Those broken chompers of yours might be a hit with the crowds. But I could always find you dentures if you come on my ship...”

 

This was a game Yondu could play. "Y'all want me to _come_ on yer ship?”

 

The Grandmaster giggled. “Oh, Lokes. Isn't he a peach?”

 

“An ugly peach. And a blue one, if you're into that sort of thing.”

 

Ooh, somebody was jealous. Lokes's scowl had yet to abate – it reminded Yondu of Quill’s favorite pouts from the days he had to be told 'no, you don't get to fly an M-ship until you can see over the dashboard without a booster seat’.

 

 _Quill_. Petey Quill, insufferable Terran extraordinaire, bane of Yondu’s life and his main reason for surviving all the crap the galaxy shat in his direction. Yondu hadn't talked to him since the cave incident. It wasn’t a mutual arrangement. After the first few comm calls buzzed through to a flat-mouthed Gamora, he gave up.

 

Apparently, finding a newly-transformed A Chiltarian balls-deep in your dad's ass was _awkward_ and _disturbing_ and _upset delicate Terran sensibilities._

 

Yondu would’ve called bullshit, if only Quill was around to hear it. Considering how many girls Quill banged in storage closets up and down the _Eclector_ , only occasionally remembering to stick his boots outside the door, he didn't have no room to complain.

 

“Don't judge ‘til ya seen me from my prettier end.”

 

“Well-spoken!” The Grandmaster clapped his hands. “Well, mi-mister Udonta. I like to give my pets the choice. Seraglio or arena, which shall it be?”

 

Yondu pretended to mull it over. “Yer askin' me to choose between orgasms an' murderin' folks? Them's two of my favorite things to do.”

 

“Valkyrie assures me you'd be quite the spectacle. But I do have a mild pre-predeliction for the color blue.” He rubbed his underlip, smearing the chalky cornflower paint.

 

“Blue is the color of monsters,” growled the godling. Yondu feigned offence.

 

“Hey now, Ass-guardian.”

 

“Asgardian.”

 

“Whatever. We ain't all Jotunn, y'know. I know yer kind don't leave yer crappy little corner of the galaxy, but you gotta see that I'm kinda small for a Frost Giant.”

 

“Forgive my concubine. We’re working through his _issues_ in this area.” The Grandmaster sidled between them, the glint in his eyes indicating that he'd like to be the filler in their sandwich under different circumstances.

 

Technically, Kraglin initiated their break. He had no cause to complain if Yondu did a little dabbling on the side. Although he would, of course, because the gangly idjit always found _something_ to bitch about. He'd be insufferable: muttering under his breath, stropping around, glowering at Yondu until he caved and forced a confrontation.

 

Yondu would give anything to have him by his side again. A bony, furry blanket to scratch him in the night and pass on his fleas and kick Yondu while he chased rabbits in his sleep.

 

Almost anything.

 

“Y'know,” said Yondu, casually tugging on his bonds. Solid – nothing that a whistle couldn’t fix. “I once told a guy I'd rather die than be a slave again.”

 

“I hate that word,” the Grandmaster simpered. Good for fucking him. Yondu locked eyes, smile falling with every word.

 

“Because no matter how _fun_ a master is, they're still a fuckin' master. You put it in yer flarkin’ name. Accept it. No matter how many _favors_ ya show to yer favorites, they’re still. Your. _Slaves._ ”

 

Topaz knuckled the board beside his head. “’Rather die', he says? I can make that happen -”

 

The Grandmaster appeared a touch ruffled, but far from incensed. He flapped a dismissive hand at his minion. “Thank you, Topaz. I'll administer my own punishments. You can go now – make sure the Valkyrie gets free drinks tonight.”

 

Was she still here? Yondu assumed she’d wandered off. He tried to crane round, but the board blocked his vision on all sides. Her boots tracked her approach: a steady clank interspersed with the occasional stagger. Somebody had been at the liquor again.

 

“He oughta go in the arena.” Her belch burst like a greasy bubble over Yondu's face. “His lover's already there. That'd be a fun match.”

 

“Ex,” Yondu said. “And uh...” He did his best to look meek. “What about my arrow, huh? Ain't much use in a fight without it, is all. You seen Krags. If ya want us to duke it out, I ain't gonna last a minute.”

 

“Liar,” Valkyrie slurred, jamming her elbow into Yondu's unprotected ribs. “He took out two scout ships in under ten seconds. He's like. _Crazy_ overpowered.”

 

“But you still caught him,” Lokes pointed out. Valkyrie's laugh erupted from her nose.

 

“He _wanted_ to come! Didn't even get my _fuckin'_ fight!”

 

“Hm.” If Lokes had a moustache, he'd have twirled it. “The man who says he'd rather die than be a slave willingly enters the Grandmaster's palace, where his lover –“

 

“Ex.”

 

“Just _happens_ to be. I don't know about you, my lord, but this smells like a trap.”

 

“Excellent!” The Grandmaster squirmed in delight. “It’s about time we got some proper entertainment!”

 

“Speaking of proper entertainment…” Lokes reminded Yondu of an eel, what with his greased-black hair and oily countenance. Or a hagfish, perhaps. Like if you tried to grasp him, he’d slither away. “Is he overpowered enough to face our champion?”

 

The Grandmaster ran his painted nails down the seam of Loki’s sleeve. “Darling, come on. You just want to dispose of him!”

 

“No, I want to see a proper battle.” Loki heaved an extravagant sigh. “You promised me _excitement,_ my liege. But the Champion pulverizes his opponents in seconds. _Milliseconds!_ There’s no _flair_ to it. No _tension.”_

 

Oh, he knew how to play him. The Grandmaster might be more ancient and powerful than most self-proclaimed gods, but Asgardians styled themselves as deities too. Yondu had his doubts; the last god he met was the size of a planet. This puny boy hardly qualified.

 

Nevertheless, he had a pretty face on him – all haughty angles and sneer. Greater man had fallen for less. The Grandmaster was putty in his hands.

 

“I _did_ promise you excitement, didn’t I? Well, Valkyrie? What is your, uh, ex-expert opinion on this matter?” A bronzed finger levelled at Yondu’s nose. “Can this old man, with his magic stick –“

 

“Arrow.”

 

“Be expected to last more than five minutes against my reigning champion?”

 

Valkyrie’s hand twitched for her hipflask. She caught it, wrestled it into a fist, and forced it back to her side. “Uh, I guess. Look, I brought him here, like you asked. Can’t I just collect my bar tokens and go?”

 

Yondu knew that feeling all too well. “Job’s done? No sentiment? Didn’t secretly fall for me?” Valkyrie narrowed her eyes. “Guess not. Must be outta practice.”

 

No growl, no punch. Unlike Topaz, simmering away like an overtaxed turbo-thruster, Valkyrie controlled her frustration. “Sentiment makes you _lose,"_ she told Yondu. "I’m no loser.”

 

Not anymore. There was something there alright – some story, some buried trauma from her past. If Yondu was a nicer guy, he might give a shit about it.

 

“Topaz, sort out the Valkyrie’s tab.” The Grandmaster presented a hand for her to kiss and simpered when she forewent it and pecked his cheek. “Oh, sweetheart. You spoil me. You’re _sure_ you don’t want a ride in one of my ships?”

 

“Pass,” the Valkyrie said, with a rare grin. She swept on by, suit creasing and stretching over muscle and breast. On her way she tapped Loki on the nose, viper-fast, before he could rear back. “Don’t want the little prince to get jealous.”

 

“Why you – I am _not_ little!”

 

“He really isn’t,” whispered the Grandmaster. He wore so much kohl on his eyelids that his lashes weighed heavy as barbells; he struggled to hoist them up from his wink. Yondu huffed a laugh.

 

“Well, how’s about y’all shove me in the Gladiator ring so I can kill this champion and put my escape plan into action while you an’ loverboy nookie? Yeah? Sound good?”

 

“Do not be so brazen!” Topaz glared at him from where she was hunched over a pad, swiping units from one brightly colored holographic bank account to another, face underlit by ghoulish green. “We will thwart your plans and crush your resolve, and the Grandmaster will melt you...“

 

“Topaz, Topaz. That’s enough. No melting today.” The Grandmaster patted her bun as one might reassure a cantankerous old guard dog. “The Champion is scheduled for a match in three days. I was going to pit him against a team of our best performers, but your arrival means that I only have to worry about losing one man, rather than seven! Quite the economic bonus. Of course, if you _do_ attempt escape before that, I _will_ have to melt you. No matter how much fun I have hunting you down.”

 

He fondled the bauble on the tip of his shaft (no, not that one). The stone throbbed luminous purple. It reminded Yondu of Kree fanatics and ingots of creation, and watching his boy dive to grab an Infinity Stone before it kissed Xandar’s scorched earth.

 

He shook his head to dispel the memory, as much as the collar allowed. He’d see Quill after this. First he rescued Kraglin, then he punched Kraglin, then he kissed Kraglin and climbed on his lap and let him have his wicked way with him, and at some point during those first three clauses they escaped.

 

Then he swung by the Collector’s, explained that he was sorry but he was going to need that sperm sample back again. After that, all that remained was a long-overdue talk with Stakar, and a road trip with the boy. He’d pour enough spirits down his gullet to induce retrograde liquid amnesia, until Quill forgot what he’d witnessed in that cave, along with his own name and how to walk in a straight line.

 

It would be _perfect._

 

“Sounds fair,” he croaked. “So long as I get a spin in one of them ships of yours first.”

 

Loki scoffed. The Grandmaster chuckled and patted Yondu several times on the shoulder.

 

“To the arena then!”

 

“Wait. My arrow –“

 

“Oh no. I’m not going to make it _easy_ on you.” Another of those treacle-slow winks. “You g-get your magic stick back only when you’re facing my Champion. Until then, you fight hand-to-hand.”

 

Yondu valiantly maintained his grin. Shit. That was less than ideal. He foresaw himself getting beaten up an awful lot over the next couple of days. Stakar always warned him against putting all his offensive eggs into one basket, but Yondu’s days of battle katas were long past him.

 

The Grandmaster smirked at him. “Good luck, Mr Udonta. I can’t _w-wait_ to make you melt.”

 

His board chugged majestically off, towards the far wall, which whooshed open and shut again with a blast of artificially filtered and incensed air. Satisfied that the door had closed, Yondu fed a high whistle between his teeth. His crest lit; the connection buzzed.

 

Good. The arrow wasn’t out of range. Whatever storage device the Grandmaster used, it wasn’t yaka. He could summon it as and when he required. He still had the advantage – he just had to wait for the perfect moment.

 

Yondu's grin didn’t last long. The floor yawned beneath him. with a screech of unoiled rollers and an answering squawk from Yondu, chair and man pitched into the dark.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

“Hey! Hey, Yondu! You alive?”

 

Light. It stirred beyond his eyelid, gluing them shut as if golden honey had been drizzled on his face. For the second time that day, Yondu Udonta woke up.

 

This time he was rather more reluctant about it. Senses returned gradually. Touch first – metal under his fingertips, still cold. Can’t have been lying here long then. His leathers shifted, releasing a waft of concentrated body odor that reminded his nose how to work. Hearing was next – or at least, comprehension of _what_ he heard. A voice, saying his name on repeat.

 

“Yondu? Yondu, are you dead? Please don’t be dead. How do I tell if a mammalian is dead?”

 

“Kraglin,” Yondu tried to say. The word didn’t make it out, but his tastebuds pinged back to life. Most folks couldn’t taste their own mouths, but then again, most mouths didn’t inhabit quite so many interesting bacterial cultures as Yondu’s. He’d once chomped the leg of a randy Kree soldier and had him pass a week later from blood poisoning – one of his proudest moments, that.

 

He blinked until the shape above him made sense.

 

"Y’ain’t Kraglin.”

 

“Yeah,” Korg agreed. “He’s out in the arena right now. Said hi to me, but he didn’t seem all that happy when I said you were coming.” He sounded accusative. Shit. How much had Kraglin revealed?

 

Yondu struggled to sit, overcompensated, and slumped over his legs. “Weren’t my fault,” he wheezed once Korg got him vaguely vertical, a hand that could span a dinner plate propped against his chest. “Weren’t traffickin’ kids, just a bit of bodily fluid.”

 

Korg’s rocks rearranged around a grimace. “Gross.”

 

Yondu pressed his forehead on the heel of his palm. It _throbbed._ The corridor span. Every time he thought it settled it shifted again, enough to give him motion sickness. But Yondu’s stomach had survived the ill-effects of Kymellian curry and pan-galactic gargle blasters, including on one occasion (very ill-advised by medical professionals) both at once. He could handle this.

 

“What happened? When’d I pass out?”

 

“Fighter tag.” Korg poked the cap on Yondu’s neck. “It keeps us docile. As in, if we _aren’t_ docile, we’re zapped.”

 

“I’m the very fuckin’ picture of _docile._ ”

 

“I think it was most likely a power play. To remind you of what he can do.” Korg shivered, brushing the his own disc. “I’ve never been owned before.”

 

“Ya get used to it.” Yondu selected a suitably solid looking wall. While his vision wobbled, splitting from two distinct overlaid images to one and back again, it didn’t feel like it was actually moving. He dragged himself up, back protesting all the way. “Shit. I ain’t young enough to do this crap anymore. Y’know I quit a year back and took up gardening?”

 

Korg’s lichen-dappled eyebrows rose. “No!”

 

“Yeah.” Yondu morosely studied his hands, all four – no, two – no, four – no, two of them. The print of his trowel remained, although it softened every passing day. “Didn’t last.”

 

“Why not?” Korg stood too, one hand outstretched in case Yondu needed the crutch. Good man. All reliable and loyal and shit. The Guardians would like him. They certainly wouldn’t take advantage of his rebellion and get the both of them enslaved. “I mean, you could’ve had it all! Peaceful life, good retirement. Isn’t that what everyone wants?”

 

“Kraglin didn’t.”

 

That was what it boiled down to, wasn’t it? Kraglin ruined _everything._ Dragged him away from his swampy slice of nirvana, forced him back into leathers, fixed his hollowed-out ship, re-welded the prosthetic to his head…

 

Then the _Warbird_ spiralled down in a torrent of ruddy flames. Kraglin left him in the wreckage of everything they’d dreamed, stomping off through the garbage heap and yelling for him not to follow. Forever – or so he claimed.

 

Fuck that.

 

“So where’s this arena?” They stood in a long corridor, curved so that only twenty meters could be seen at once. Thankfully, the Grandmaster’s dubious taste in decor hadn’t percolated this deep. The walls were bare metal, burnished in patches as if the steel suffered mange. Yondu's kinda place - not that he wanted to hang around longer than necessary. “This way, right?”

 

He chose one at random and set off, ignoring Korg’s groans to the contrary. And yet, within fifty paces, he found himself back where he started. “Okay. Uh, that ain't possible.”

 

“You think I haven’t been exploring?” Korg looked as morose as a boulder got. “Trust me. I’ve run about both directions plenty of times. We’re in a spatial loop of some sort. My guess is that Grandmaster dude has some means of warping the fabric of reality –“

 

Yondu tuned him out. He didn’t care about the _how._ All he needed to know was how to escape.

 

“Well, we got in, right? And folks have got to get out, if the Grandmaster wants them to fight his Champion.”

 

“I’ve heard about him.” Korg nodded to piles of personal belongings, thoroughly rifled, spilling their contents over the floor. “There used to be a lot more gladiators. They say he rips through them like they’re made of bog roll.”

 

“Huh.” Yondu piled a little more of his weight on the wall. “I volunteered to fight him three days from now.”

 

“Literally tears them apart. Legs one way, head the other, guts splatting out in the middle. You mammalians _spurt_ , which is all kinds of disturbing, and – wait. What?”

 

“I’m fighting the Champion,” Yondu explained, with more patience than Korg deserved. “Unless me an’ Krags get out beforehand.”

 

An earthquake shook Korg’s broad face. “ _Stars._ ”

 

“Aw, c’mon.” Yondu grinned, jabbing playfully at him – and shaking out his sore knuckles afterwards. “Have some faith.”

 

“No! No, you can’t, you’re…” Korg gestured up and down. Yondu folded his arms.

 

“What.”

 

“Squishy! You’re too squishy.”

 

Yondu considered being offended, but supposed that in comparison to Korg’s blockish form, even the most salient of muscles seemed soft. “Don’tchu worry. Me an’ Krags’re splittin’ this joint. Yer welcome to tag, if ya can keep up and not get dead.”

 

Korg’s eyes were the only part of his body not hewn from coarse stone. They twinkled now. “You have a plan?”

 

Yondu puffed himself proudly up. “I have _part_ of a plan.”

 

Korg slumped. He opened his mouth to argue, and shut it again. “Better than nothing,” he said. Yondu knew he liked him for a reason.

 

“I reckon there’s cameras an’ shit down here,” he said, leaning close enough to smell his breath bouncing back off the Kronan’s chest. “Can’t tell ya whas goin’ on. So just… be ready, yeah? Shame to leave that momma of yours. Mighty, uh, fine bird, that.”

 

Korg nodded dismally. “I just can’t believe she’d settle for _Brad…_ ”

 

Not wanting to segway down that segue, Yondu steered them back on track. “So, this arena," he said, at full volume. "There’s gotta be a way of watching, right?”

 

“None that I’ve – wait. Hey, check it out!”

 

Yondu turned. Where once had been a blank wall, there was now a circling view of a vast colosseum, carpeted in sand.

 

“Cameras,” Korg said, scanning the ceiling. “Just like you said. That’s gotta be it. Hey, can we get a toilet?” A pan clunked from the opposite side of the corridor. Korg glanced at Yondu. “Uh. Would you mind shutting your eyes? I’m just a little pee-shy...“

 

He needn’t have worried. Yondu wasn’t looking at him.

 

At the center of the ring, three figures clashed, sprung apart, clashed again. Whirling, colliding, slicing at one another with wild swings. The racket bellowed through hidden speakers, loud enough that feedback blared and Korg could relieve himself at leisure.

 

Grunts, roars, screams. The cheer and stomp of the crowd.

 

Yondu’s heart pumped hard enough to hurt. The spectators were a motley lot, comprised of every race he knew and more than he didn’t. Not all blue. Not all jeering, not all taking bets on who got the survivor delivered to their bed. It weren’t nothing like home.

 

So why did his chest clench up as the camera dropped, viewpoint lowering to kiss the stadium’s edge?

 

Why did his innards knot as the focus sharpened, honing on Kraglin’s blood-spattered fur, the dark stripes of war paint in his mutton-chops?

 

Why, why in hell, after everything he’d done (a light spot of murder and mayhem) and everything he’d sacrificed to get here (not very much at all) did Yondu want to run?

 

He wouldn’t get very far. The loop the Grandmaster stitched in space-time ensured that.

 

Swallowing, he stepped closer to the projection. When he touched the wall, the lights flowed filmily over the back of his hand.

 

“Huh,” said Korg from behind him, zipping up. “You actually care about that guy, don’t you?”

 

Once upon a time, Yondu would’ve gutted him for the insinuation. Nowadays, something burrowed into him, spurred by Korg’s incredulity. Something that felt a little bit like guilt.

 

“That really so hard to believe?”

 

He faced the wall as the projection frittered out, glow dying back to blank metal. His outstretched hand curled slowly, nails scraping like they longed to gouge through and out the other side.

 

Korg, wisely, didn’t answer.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Thank you so much to everyone who commented and motivated me to get this next chapter up! Work has... killed me lately, hence the massive gap in updates (by my standards). Comments are honestly the only thing that's making me publish fic at the moment, so thank you for each and every one. x**


	6. And I'm Gonna Wear It Tonight

Stomping, cheering, roars and bellows. The Sakaaran elite trumpeted their appreciation to the faraway stars.

 

The gladiators straggled back to the lift that would drop them into their quarters – a pocket of looped space that swivelled around itself like the world serpent, devouring its own tail. Didn't quite feel like home to Kraglin, not yet, but eh. Give it a coupla years.

 

Miek squeaked morosely, tucked under Kraglin's hairy arm. _Go on,_ he seemed to say. _Go with the rest of them. Leave me here to bake in my shell._

 

Kraglin couldn't help but feel a kinship with his insectoid coworkers. "S'alright," he told the little guy. "Better luck next time."

 

The giant louse was down one antenna, sheared off by Kraglin’s claws. It would grow back, of course, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t milking the wound for every drop of sympathy. Kinda like some other jerk Kraglin knew, who took plasma shots with a blood-flecked grin but hollered up a stink whenever he stubbed his toe.

 

“I ain't one for the spotlight," he continued, scuffing the blood-stained sand with the hook of a clawed blue toe. "Didn’t never want to be a cap’n, y’know? He made me do it. Just decided _oh, I’m gonna fake my death and retire and Kraglin’ll step into my boots because that's what good ol’ Kraglin does._ "

 

Miek chirred in righteous indignation. Kraglin nodded along as they stepped into the lift, chains rattling overhead.

 

“I _know._ Took me for granted, he did. An’ _sure,_ he didn’t have to pull that crap with the pherry-mones, or, y’know, forgive me after the mutiny. Or for nearly eatin’ him. Like, five times. But I've been forgivin' him since I met the bastard. Enough's enough, y'know?"

 

Kraglin exchanged nods and fist-bumps with the waiting gladiators. Outside the arena, their rivalries crumbled. Everyone was a showman here. Kraglin never had that skill, not in his old body, but nowadays he found something unspeakably satisfying about flexing his claws and baring his teeth to make the crowds roar.

 

“Still miss him,” he confided in Miek, as the last victors finished their lap and loped for the lift. “S’ppose time’ll help with that.”

 

Time helped with a lot of things. Like feeling your body didn’t belong to you, a meat sack tortured and warped beyond all recognition. Like realizing you’d been lied to your whole life. Like discovering you weren’t who – or what! – you thought you were, and that your history was entangled with the fate of a colonized race whose names you’d never heard of, although you were expected to be furious on behalf of their annihilation by the Empire.

 

The Empire you were convinced, as of half a year ago, that you belonged to. Kraglin Obfonteri, Xandarian diaspora.

 

Well, not anymore.

 

“He was s’pposed to be there,” he said, leaning his head on the bars as they began their noisy descent. “He were Cap’n Udonta. Biggest bastard to hunt the starways. No matter what happened, he were always there.”

 

“What’s he talkin’ about?” grumbled one of the other gladiators, a stocky skrull girl who went by Enga.

 

The long-necked mantis creature beside her sniggered. Jugo, they called themselves – although their actual name was a collection of clicks no mammalian throat could replicate. “His boyfriend.”

 

“Ex,” Kraglin corrected.

 

“Oh, honey.” Jugo placed one of their slim pedes on his arm, making Miek crane in the opposite direction. “You need to get him out of your head!”

 

“Was kinda hopin’ the gladiator matches’d do that.”

 

“Hm.” They kneaded there, gently. “Do they help?”

 

He called the Ravagers his brothers, but at the same time, he hid so damn much from them. From his fling with their captain to that genuine fondness he cultivated for Tullk and Oblo and the rest of his friends. But with these folks, folks he battered to bruises in the arena every other day, he could talk freely.

 

“A bit. Soon as I step away, it all comes back again.”

 

“Hm.” Jugo delivered one last pat and stepped back, to Miek's relief. A warm dribble of liquid oozed from under his shell. As much as he liked the little guy, Kraglin sure hoped that was blood.

 

“Perhaps you need a bigger thrill," Jugo continued. "You could always fight the Champion?”

 

“Nah. I wanna move on in this life, not the next.”

 

Jugo snapped their mandibles in what Kraglin suspected was be a laugh. Whatever it was supposed to be, it certainly clamped Miek's exoskeleton tight to his innards. “Hey, if you want to be distracted from your relationship drama, death’s the best way.”

 

“Kinda overkill.”

 

“Exactly!”

 

Kraglin delegated Miek to Enga, who pulled a face at his damp underbelly. This freed him up to pummel Jugo as their lift boomed to a thunderous halt. “Think yer funny, huh? I’ll show ya funny, you lil’ –“

 

Jugo’s eyes were always wide – like Kraglin’s, they had no lids. But right now, they popped larger than saucers.

 

“Kraglin,” they said.

 

Kraglin gave them a last good-natured shove. “Yeah?”

 

Nothing like a bit of roughhousing between arena buddies. He missed it – bruising your knuckles on your mate's arm then laughing about it later over a tankard of hooch and a line of popper-dust, a bot-hooker on each of your laps, the open stars above...

 

“Kraglin?” said Yondu.

 

Kraglin froze. Enga dropped Miek - who landed on all-fours (or all-sixes, more accurately) and scuttled away to groom the sand out of his casing.

 

“Oh my god,” she said. “You're his boyfriend!”

 

Kraglin remembered how inhalation worked.

 

“Ex,” he croaked, and saw the smile leave Yondu's eyes. It remained on his face though, ringed by the creases that had doubled since Kraglin last saw him, like stress had taken an etching knife to his head.

 

“Krags,” he said, stepping onto the lift. The box swayed, buoying up as gladiators vacated. Yondu's weight – slight, among Kronan and Kymellian and larger – barely registered in comparison. He'd always been shorter than Kraglin, but now Kraglin had added another foot to his already lofty collection. Yondu looked kinda dinky.

 

Small. Pathetic. The sort of jackass who sold a kid into slavery. Their kid, in fact - or as close as they'd ever come.

 

Kraglin might not like children – might do his darned utmost to avoid their company (Groot included, who, after his ordeal on the asteroid, couldn't meet his eyes without flinching). But before him stood a living representation of what slavery did to a man, fists balling and opening at his sides as if they were bellows that could force his words from his chest.

 

Yondu didn't even see the irony. That was the worst thing. He could butcher Kree slavers all he liked, claim that it was revenge for what they did to him when he'd been too small to fight back. Didn't change that when the Collector pitched his offer, Yondu took it, with full knowledge that child would be born and raised in a cage. And then, when he was trying to convince Kraglin that he knew what he was doing, that he had _a plan,_ that they were just going to swan into the galaxy's most highly-secured menagerie and walk out again, he gunned the thrusters the wrong way at a jump portal and landed them in this shitpit.

 

Time worked different here, on the margins of what was real. Even if they got out tomorrow, ten years might've passed. And here was Yondu, flying by the seat of his pants, pretending he had it under control.

 

Kragliln looked down at him. He licked his eyeballs in lieu of blinking, introducing a little moisture after the sand-baked stretch of the arena.

 

Then, without saying a word, he sidestepped Yondu and walked away. Jugo and Enga exchanged glances and followed him, leaving Yondu alone, facing the lift's rear wall.

 

“Aw, hell.”

 

That was the big Kronan Kraglin met before his match. How he'd met Yondu and what they were doing here together – in cahoots? Business partners? Something more? – didn't matter. Nope. Not one bit.

 

He scowled at the big guy as he lumbered past, who pointed to himself in confusion. “Um. What did I do?”

 

“When ya said he'd show up, I figured you meant in a few days. Not right now.”

 

“Well, I didn't know! Nobody tells me anything!”

 

Kraglin snorted. He padded to the feeding troughs without looking back.

 

He didn't make it far. Stomp, stomp, stomp. Yondu grabbed Kraglin's bare shoulder, yanking him about.

 

“What?”

 

“Don'tchu just walk away from me! What – y'ain't got nothin' to say? After all this, you an' me, nothin'?”

 

Kraglin studied his claws. Whatever juice Miek had leaked, it stained his hands a disquieting shade of orange. “Not really.”

 

“Cold,” Korg muttered, but he put up his hands when they both glowered at him and went to join the other spectators. “Yep, sorry, not my business...”

 

Gladiators didn't get much of a chance to sit back and enjoy a match – they tended to star in them. Right now, sluicing blood off under the fold-out showerheads, they absorbed the show with no little interest. A few mumbles flurried around, a few handfuls of meal tokens exchanged pockets. Given how squishy Yondu looked among the Grandmaster's prize battlers, Kraglin doubted they gave him good odds.

 

“I started a fuckin' revolution for ya,” Yondu said. THe longer Kraglin didn't reply, the more pissed-off he looked. “I faced off against the Grandmaster's fuckin' army.”

 

“What?” came the stage-whisper from somewhere to the left. “That little pipsqueak?”

 

“Why the hell's he here?”

 

“Right. He's just meat. Better off on one of them fruity ships.”

 

Kraglin turned and pinned the culprit a glare as long and icy as the winters on Hoth. They wisely shut their mouth, but Yondu never grew much of a sense of self-preservation.

 

“C'mon, Krags.” That was his captain-voice; the voice Kraglin followed into bank vaults and prisons and Kree fortresses, the voice he once told himself he'd follow into death itself. Nowadays, he wasn't so certain. “Let's get out of here. I got a plan, and we got Korg to use as bait -”

 

Korg stuck up his hand as if requesting permission to speak in class. “Uh, excuse me? Bait?”

 

That crossed him off the rebound list. Kraglin refused to acknowledge why he felt relieved about that.

 

“Still using people, huh.” He treated Korg to a smile that showed off his eyeteeth. “Don't worry. Ya get used to it. Then ya get sick of it, and..." He shouldered out from Yondu's palm. “ _He_ can't let you go.”

 

He really _did_ miss him. That was the worst of it. And not just the sex - that would've made this easier.

 

It was more... Having that person beside you who made scathing commentaries about every passer-by, not caring if they overheard. Someone who'd goof off and gabble nonsense if it'd only make Kraglin laugh, even in the middle of an important client-intimidation session.

 

Someone who had, not too long since, lain flat-out besides him in the warm steamy dusk, insects chirping all around and fireflies speckling the sky. Someone who'd promised him they'd be fine, that everything would go back to the way it was. Not because Yondu wanted it, but because Kraglin _needed_ it.

 

What a long time ago that seemed.

 

“Get away from him while you still can,” he told Korg, ignoring Yondu's stupefied blink. “This one's got a knack for destroying what he loves.”

 

“I don't – ' _love'?_ I aint fuckin' soft, you fuckin' -”

 

“That's right.” Kraglin stalked for the showers, assigning himself a nozzle by sneering at the occupant until they vacated, suds and all. He stripped his loincloth, dumping it on the wash pile before moving beneath the spray. “You ain't soft,” he told Yondu, snatching a bar of soap and lathering up, scraping the dust from his fur. “You ain't never gonna be. There's somethin' broken in ya and I got better shit to do then try to fix it.”

 

Silence.

 

Then: "Kraglin." Yondu's voice didn't crack - didnt even wobble. No weakness. “Kraglin, c'mon. Let's get outta here. You an' me an' Korg.”

 

Kraglin vigorously shampooed his ears. “No.”

 

“I have a plan!”

 

“Part of a plan,” Korg corrected. Yondu kicked him – then, judging by the hopping, regretted it.

 

“Look,” he puffed, once he’d recovered. “I got this, kay? We’re gettin’ outta here.” He stalked forwards, glaring at the showering gladiators until they, amused, stepped from his path. He stopped under the spray, water limpening his furry collar, beading at the ends of his fingers before plopping into the drain. Plink, plink, plink. “C’mon, Krags. Baby. What d’you say?”

 

Kraglin methodically massaged the foam into his follicles. “I already said no _._ ”

 

Yondu shook his head. “Ya don’t mean that.”

 

“Well, I’m sayin’ it.” Kraglin rinsed off, squeezing his mutton chops until the last of the froth swept away, swirling into the palace’s rotten foundations. “I ain’t leavin’, and I sure as heck ain’t leavin’ with you.”

 

That took a moment to sink in. When Kraglin spared him a glance, he found Yondu staring at him through the shimmer of steam, eyes like pink stained glass.

 

“Well, thas a mighty flarkin’ stupid decision on yer part, Krags. You realize the Grandmaster owns ya? That yer a _slave_?”

 

Kraglin nodded to the glinting disc on Yondu’s neck. “Speak for yourself.”

 

Perhaps, just perhaps, he suffered a few pangs over that, all located in the chest region. Some things a guy shouldn’t relive, even an ass-hat like Yondu.

 

But Kraglin never asked him to come. Yondu _chose_ this, and Kraglin refused – for once – to blame himself for his misery.

 

Yondu’s eye ticked: a sharp little twitch that betrayed far more than the rest of him. “I ain’t no slave,” he growled. “I’m playin’ the long game, but I’m gettin’ outta here. With or without ya, Krags.”

 

Kraglin shrugged. He cranked the shower lever round another notch and locked it in. The nozzle retracted, replaced by an open vent. It blasted him with a torrid gust, drying Kraglin's eyes until the compound lenses crinkled.

 

“Guess it’s without,” he said. He turned to bake the wet fluff on his back and legs, then - when Yondu failed to get out his way - barged past. Yondu's legs went out from under him (shit, it was so easy to forget how _strong_ he was now) and down he went, sitting heavily in the drainage gulley with a splash and an enraged squawk.

 

Kraglin left him to flounder. He unwound his bed roll as Korg grabbed a slippery arm, hauling Yondu back to vertical, albeit considerably drippier than before. Yondu demonstrated his gratitude with an elbow to the ribs that hurt him more than his helper.

 

“Don’t coddle me, boy!”

 

Ignoring Jugo's dancing antennae and Enga's eye-rolls, Kraglin finished patting the curly mattress into shape. He rolled to face the wall, scowling at his reflection in the grubby metal. Foreign, wrong, right; he didn't know anymore. But this body was all he had. Perhaps pledging it to the Grandmaster had been a mistake. But hell. He'd been at a low fucking point, and so far this whole slavery crap didn't seem awful.

 

Now, despite public opinion to the contrary, Kraglin weren't entirely stupid. He also wasn't cruel enough to think Yondu hadn't seen worse, no matter how pissed off at him he might be. But so far, there was a roof over his head, food whenever he wanted it, a decent selection of booze at the victors' bar and an opportunity to engage in healthy daily doses of violence. Cushier than Ravagery had been during those long, skinflint days when there wasn't the nosh to go around and Kraglin had given up half his portion to cap'n (who'd sent his own in the direction of Peter 'I'm a growing boy' Quill).

 

Plus, he'd figured that this was the one place Yondu wouldn't follow him. Fat lot of good that had done.

 

Kraglin licked his eyeballs one more time. He watched a hundred miniature A Chiltarians as, with choreography you wouldn't find outside of an A'askavarian ballet, they pillowed their hairy arms under their cheeks and settled in to sleep.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **It's been a Hell Month at work and I'm mostly made of stress and insomnia. I'm slooooowly coming back to life, but it's really thrown off my groove. Sorry for the slow updates, and thank you so much to the wonderful Name1 who has been waiting on this! You're an absolute peach. I promised myself I'd get this up at the weekend, and I'm honestly proud I managed to hit that target. Thanks, as always, for every click of that kudos button and every comment, no matter how small. x**


	7. I'm Gonna Get In Trouble

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Horrendously overdue, as usual... But I hope you enjoy it.**

Nothing like bedding down in the same room as the man you maybe, possibly, gave a full-sized start-of-the-morning shit about. Course, it'd be better without twenty snoring gladiators between you and him and a soggy leather duster for your blanket. Yondu rolled until he squelched to rest against Korg’s crag of a back.

 

“Oi. You awake?”

 

The big guy snored somewhat convincingly, but he gave it away when Yondu poked him and he jumped.

 

“M’talkin’ to ya, boy.”

 

“Stars. Okay, I’m awake. Just keep your voice down, please?” Korg hunched, hemmed in on all sides by the snorting, wind-passing, belly-scratching goons Kraglin’d chosen for his new _family_. “These guys are scary. I don’t wanna piss them off.”

 

“I’m scary,” Yondu argued, although it got lost around his yawn. “Korg, what the hell’m I s’pposed to do?”

 

“I don't know _._ Volunteering to fight the Champion – you’re crazier than I thought.”

 

“Not about _that._ Idjit.” Yondu banged his toe cap off Korg’s calf. He eased up on his elbows, leaning to hiss in his buddy’s ear: “About _Kraglin._ Grandmaster must’ve brainwashed him. He’s actin’ like he don’t wanna be free.”

 

Korg was quiet for a few moments. Then: “What did you mean, about me being your bait?”

 

Yondu located a crevasse between two plates of rock and jabbed it with a marksman’s accuracy. He almost lost his finger when the plates clamped shut, but Korg’s yelp was worth it. “Don’t’chu derail. Answer the fuckin’ question. What should I do?”

 

“I don’t know!” Korg ruefully rubbed his back, shuffling to squint at Yondu face to face. “Ugh, is your coat still wet? No wonder it stinks.”

 

“Obviously,” Yondu continued. If Korg’s olfactory senses were offended by damp leather and armpit-guff, he wouldn’t have lasted long as a Ravager. “Kraglin ain’t thinkin’ straight. If I gotta knock him out, so be it. But I can’t hit that hard.” The dim gleam of the projected arena-board shone off the wicked gold sickle of his grin. “You can.”

 

“No.” Korg shook his head. “ _No._ Yondu, I’m not concussing your boyfriend so you can kidnap him.”

 

“It’s a _rescue._ Rescues ain’t kidnapping.”

 

“Even if your rescuee doesn’t want to come?”

 

Why did he bother? Korg was evidently two charges short of a plasma bolt. He didn’t understand any of this. Yondu should have left him with his pamphlets at the bar.

 

“I’ll make it up as I go along,” he decided, blasting Korg’s face with halitosis until the man caved and rolled back over. “That usually works.”

 

“Just leave me out of it. I don’t want any part of this.” Korg pillowed a coarse cheek on an equally rugged arm – it actually looked less comfortable than the floor. “I hope you get out though. I don’t want to watch you die.”

 

Yondu patted him between the shoulder blades. “Sorry, kid. You an’ me just ain’t gonna work out. Y’need to find yerself a cute pile of rubble to stick yer pecker in.“

 

“God, you’re insufferable.”

 

“Yeah. I try.” A sharp intake of breath. Yondu cracked an eye. Had some grunt tired of their natter, shanked Korg under his granite ribs? They’d better not of done. They was in mid-conversation; that were just _rude._ “Korg?”

 

Korg didn’t reply. Yondu pushed to sit, head rushing from the altitude change. Damn shocks; they’d rattled him to his bones. He was too damn _old_ for this, and so fucking much for a peaceful retirement.

 

Thankfully, the Kronan lived on – which meant Yondu didn’t have to get his coat even dirtier as he bludgeoned out the brains of his assailant. He pointed at the far wall, onto which the assigned matches were projected. His broad finger trembled like the first rock in the landslide.

 

Yondu saw his own face opposite a massive green fist. The mysterious Champion, he assumed. Shame he wasn’t going to get a chance to actually meet him, not if his escape went to plan. When you were the most powerful man in the room, every now and then you found yourself craving a challenge.

 

“Yeah, yeah,” he said, flumping back down. “I’m fighting the big guy. Old news. I got two days left to enjoy my life, right?”

 

“Not that.” Korg patted blindly for his shoulder, almost flattening his nose in the process. “You’re on it twice. Look – up there.”

 

“Huh?” Yondu eased to a seated position once more, albeit with a few more grumbles. He scrubbed the sleep from his eyes and assessed the timetable, which pitted the gladiators’ mugshots one against the other throughout the next week. He noticed he hadn’t been logged for any matches after the Champion. The Grandmaster wasn’t hedging his bets.

 

Before that though? Tomorrow, in fact, Yondu had been logged for a warm-up round. And Kraglin’s ugly snout snarled opposite.

 

“Huh,” he said, scratching his scar-hatched temple. “Thas gonna be fun.”

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

Yondu’s definition of ‘fun’ left a lot to be desired. Kraglin woke up, checked the board, and promptly dropped his face to rest in his fuzzy blue paws.

 

“Hell.”

 

“So you’ve seen.” That was Jugo, wittering away beside him. They rubbed their legs with a crickety chirp. Kraglin couldn’t tell whether they were excited or concerned. “Do you think you’ll win? On whom should I place my week’s earnings?”

 

Excited it was. Kraglin flicked them on the antennae. “Asshole.”

 

“It is a serious question, Kraglin! You’d ask the same of me!”

 

“Yeah, probably. If you could ever hold a guy down long enough to bite his head off, or whatever the hell else ya do to yer mates.”

 

Jugo’s mandibles chittered. “Stereotyping, this early in the morning? My, you woke up on the wrong side of the bed-roll.”

 

Kraglin stretched out his aching spine. “I don’t think there’s a _right_ side. And no – I woke up and saw that I’m due to fight that grade-A moomba fart. I think I’m licensed to be pissed.”

 

“You’re not pissed, you’re _stroppy._ Come on – admit it. Perhaps this will be therapeutic?”

 

“That depends.”

 

“On what?”

 

Kraglin’s grin was mirthless, and showed far too many teeth. “On whether cap’n gets his arrow, or we do this old-fashioned.”

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

The day passed rapidly. Yondu nodded along to their tour, offered by the big skrull lass who’d been in cahoots with Kraglin the day before. There wasn’t much to say. Theirs was a finite stitch of space time, and the Grandmaster controlled everything from when they ate to where they pissed.

 

Korg ambled beside him. The two of them tested how many paces they could walk around their corridor before the loop landed them back where they started. It varied every time – not much, only by a step here or there, enough that it could be human error.

 

“Are you nervous?” Korg asked, _sotto voce._

 

Ten steps. Eleven. Yondu laughed hard enough to give himself stitch.

 

“Nervous? ‘Bout fightin’ Krags? _Me_? Seriously?”

 

“That was too many rhetorical questions.” Korg gnawed on his flinty cheek. “Oh, god. You actually _are_ nervous.”

 

Yondu glanced over his shoulder. Kraglin stood with his posse in the area designated as the ‘training zone’. They’d peeled back a wall panel, revealing a selection of weights, which Kraglin curled up to his fuzzy chest and back down again on repeat. His multifaceted eyes couldn’t focus, but in that moment it seemed they were looking somewhere far away.

 

A flash and a faint electronic whirr. Yondu corrected his vision to the front – where another Kraglin sat, in exactly the same position, doing his curls and pretending he didn’t exist. He checked behind him, and saw only the curve of the corridor. Fifteen steps, full circle.

 

“Do they ever let us out of here?” he asked Enga. “Other than when we’re fightin’, of course.” Enga stroked her wrinkly chin.

 

“We have an hour in the ring each day, and after our match we have the option of heading to the gladiators' half of the bar. Forcefield stops us mingling with the freedmen.”

 

“Didn’t see any of you takin’ that route last night.”

 

“Course not. You showed up, and we were waiting for Kraglin to punch you. Sounded like good entertainment.”

 

What a flatterer. Kraglin sure knew how to choose ‘em. “Well, y'all get the full show tonight.”

 

Enga cleared her throat, leaning in. “I heard some mumblings. About an arrow.”

 

Korg nodded, realized Yondu wasn’t copying him, and tentatively shook his head. “No idea what you’re talking about.”

 

“Shaddup. Why d’you wanna know? You makin’ bets?” Enga’s gruesome grin told him everything he needed. “Course you are.”

 

“My money’s on Kraglin shreddin’ you a new hole out there,” she confided, jostling his shoulder. It made the metaphor of being stuck between a rock on a hard place quite literal – jammed in a Kronan-Skrull sandwich, Yondu was painfully reminded of what Korg proclaimed when he found out about his match with the Champion.

 

_You’re too squishy._

 

Kraglin wouldn’t kill him. Not after everything they’d been through. But if a stray swipe went wide, if Kraglin was still getting used to elongated limbs, if he let anger get the better of him for a single _second_ …

 

Snick went Yondu’s carotid. Goodbye galaxy. Goodbye Quill, goodbye Rat and Groot, goodbye any chance of reconciliation with Stakar, Kraglin, or his own damn conscience.

 

He locked that in an adamantium cage the moment he shook the Collector’s hand. However, it had been oozing through the bars ever since – an oleaginous smog that coloured every action, judged every second where he wasn’t shooting back to Knowhere to reclaim what was theirs.

 

Last time Kraglin and Yondu faced off, Yondu wound up fucked bloody in a cave, collapsed ass-up, mind mushed and legs jelly. Time before that, he almost got eaten. Before _that,_ Kraglin flung the arrow they shared custody of between them, tore the implant out of his skull, and in front of Yondu’s eyes, burst out of his own pale skin.

 

There was no turning back time, no undoing what had been wrought. Yondu and Kraglin had _baggage._

 

Talking things through was well and good for the shrinks on Knowhere, but any space salt could tell you that nothing brought catharsis like driving your knuckles into the cheek of the man you loved.

 

Perhaps that was what Kraglin needed. A win. Some graspable sense of _power._ They were Ravagers, after all. All Yondu had to do was lie back and think of the _Eclector,_ take the punches and body-slams and cuts and whatever else Kraglin dished out. Then things would go back to normal.

 

“Awright,” he said, vigorously rubbing his hands. “Hour a day, ya say? Show me this arena of yours. I wanna know where I gotta stand so the crowds get my best angle.”

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

The empty stands had an eerie quality, like walking around a school after class had ended, or exploring one of the ghost ships Kraglin and Yondu flew past on their journey out into the black. Those were some creepy sons-of-guns: vessels floating empty, lights guttering at the end of their half-life, engines thrumming in feeble puffs and food rotting where it lay spread out on the table, as if in appeasement to an unnamed god.

 

The colosseum reared overhead, rising up from the arena in steps. The main fighting area was a dustbowl at the crater’s base.

 

Four attendants trundled around the ring, cajoling shaggy beasts of burden, each of which dragged a cart and a mountain of fresh sand. A simple pulley system opened a panel on the cart’s underside, siphoning a gritty stream through the slats as if it was a two-ton egg timer. The attendants deployed the sand whenever they passed a patch of blood, burying it under a golden shower. Unfortunately, their carthorses made a few golden showers of their own.

 

Yondu picked his way around the wet patch. “Alright,” he puffed, hefting the axe onto his shoulders and managing not to stagger. He beckoned to Korg, who stood wringing his hands a few feet away, feet sinking into the fresh sand to reveal the pink beneath. “Come at me.”

 

“Are you sure this is a good…“

 

“Would ya quit askin’ me if it’s a damn good idea! I know what I’m about, boy.” Yondu hefted the axe into a ready position. Or, y’know, a vague approximation of one. “C’mon, I ain’t gettin’ no younger.”

 

Korg gusted a sigh. He walked over, dodging Yondu’s wild swings and deflecting the last with a simple swat of his wrist. Then, ever so gently, he punched him in the stomach.

 

By the time they’d peeled Yondu off the arena wall and checked him for ruptured organs, their practice hour was quarter way through. Korg performed a nervous polka, jigging from foot to foot and patting Yondu’s shoulders.

 

“Oh my god. Are you okay? Are you _okay?_ I’m so sorry!”

 

Yondu, clutching his bruised gut, stared past him to where Enga and Jugo and the rest clashed and parted and clashed again. Kraglin, partnered with a heavyset crustacean, held his own. He didn’t look at Yondu once. Which was a mighty shame, considering how he’d prettied himself up.

 

Apparently, his leathers didn’t suit the gladiatorial scene. Yondu'd nabbed a sleeveless red vest that managed the considerable task of making him look like he’d done a sit-up at some point over the past year. Coupled with a tighter set of pants that showed off his best assets and a fresh-buffed pair of boots, he was feeling damn near pretty as an angel. One that had been rolled around a garbage heap for a few weeks, but an angel nevertheless.

 

Korg poked him in the side. “Yondu,” he whispered. “I thought you wanted to practice, not pout at your boyfriend.”

 

Only problem was, Kronans and hushed pitches didn’t mix. More than a few titters reverberated around the ring. The attendants at least had the good sense to shut their mouths as soon as Yondu glared. The other gladiators, however, took stock of how easily Yondu got punched into the arena wall, decided he wasn’t a threat, and chortled their jolly hearts out.

 

No sense summoning his arrow early – even though it was tempting. Yondu gave up on them. Let them laugh. They’d all see, soon enough.

 

He fixed his poisonous sneer on Korg instead. “I weren’t _pouting._ ”

 

Korg raised his hands. “Sure you weren’t.”

 

“My lips jus’ do that naturally. Comes from bein' a whistlin' species, an' all.”

 

“Sure they do. Okay – uh. When was the last time you got in a fight? Y’know, with your fists?”

 

Yondu thought about it. “I punched Quill coupla times, back when Kraglin was doin’ his thing in the woods?”

 

“Did he hit you back?”

 

“No. Sucker.”

 

“Then it doesn’t count. Look.” Korg crouched so that they were both on the same level. “You’d better have a trick up your sleeve, buddy. Otherwise this won’t end well for you.”

 

Yondu, still rubbing his sore stomach – who punched in the pouch, anyways? – coaxed his grimace into a grin. “Don’t worry. Krags ain’t gonna hurt me.”

 

Korg gave him a flat blink.

 

“He ain’t gonna hurt me _much._ Look, I got this, okay? Now, uh. Show me how to do that block thing you did.”

 

“That won’t work unless your arm is made of rock.” Korg shook his head, mournful like he was pushing a puppy into the cold. “You aren’t cut out for this, Yondu. I’m sorry.”

 

“Yeah.” He and Kraglin would be present in the arena together, spotlights honed on the battle and not on the sky above. That gave Yondu the perfect opportunity. But there was only room for two aboard the arrow express. Yondu handed Korg the axe. “I’m sorry too.”

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

Thunder.

 

The denizens of Sakaar swarmed into the stadium, questing after their daily dose of blood. Their footsteps rumbled through the foundations of the colosseum, making the sand in the arena jump and twitch.

 

Far below, sat in the corner of the cage lift, Yondu lifted his head. Heavy streaks of war paint dragged diagonally over his cheekbones, red as his implant. For the first time that day, he found Kraglin watching him.

 

“What,” he croaked.

 

Kraglin licked his left eyeball, then his right. “Nothin’,” he said.

 

The chains rattled taut, the counterweight dropped, and they began their creaking ascent.

 

Yondu waggled his fingers at Korg. The big guy carried a termite tucked under his arm – one of Kraglin’s buddies, the size of that so-called football Quill once found on a scrap stall and tried to pester Yondu into passing back and forth to him across the Bridge until Yondu lost patience and ejected it.

 

He returned Yondu’s wave, though Yondu had to grin bright enough for both of them. It would be the last time he saw Korg – though not for the reasons he probably assumed. The kid deserved a smile.

 

“Any chance ya go easy on me?” he asked Kraglin as the cage chugged past the gladiators’ tunnel, immersing them in the darkness of the chute. Kraglin extracted a strand of gristle from under his claw with his teeth – or from between his teeth with his claw; Yondu couldn’t quite tell.

 

“Not likely.”

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

The cage opened into the armory room. This close to the surface, the roars of the crowd verged on deafening. They reverberated through the I-beams that raftered the ceiling, jigging the assortment of knives, swords, warhammers and worse in their magnetic lock-clips.

 

Yondu screwed his pinky into his ear. A steady stream of dust shivered from the roof, more slithering down as the amphitheatre shook. Granules crunched under his boots as he strode to the nearest wall-mounted rack. Kraglin didn’t join him.

 

“You ain’t pickin’ toys?” Yondu motioned to a set of sleek Svartalfar knives – evil little things with an edge so fine it made the air shimmer, the naked eye unable to tell where the metal began. “These’re right up yer street. All shiny and purty an’ shit.”

 

Kraglin shook his head. “Nah,” he said, as Yondu smoothed covetous palms over a cutlass, its hilt embedded with gems. “Don’t need ‘em. Not anymore.”

 

He flexed his hands in demonstration. His claws didn’t retract fully. However – as Yondu had discovered one night in the _Wardbird’s_ cabin, when he got Kraglin revved and the fingers in his innie-bits suddenly became a whole lot sharper than was appreciated – he usually kept them half-buried. Now they extended to their full length – two inches on each, curved like scimitar blades.

 

Yondu gave the cutlass a last loving pat. “Les’ get on with it then.”

 

And with that he headed for the second lift, this sized to fit a single man (albeit one of Korg’s proportions). His name flashed overhead, along with his color – red. Kraglin’s identical elevator, on the other side of the armory, glowed royal blue.

 

Kraglin frowned. He actually started after him, catching his arm, before remembering he wasn’t supposed to give a shit. His fingers dripped from Yondu’s wrist, one by one.

 

“Uh. You ain’t gonna take a weapon?”

 

Yondu shrugged, shirt grating the scars on his back. “You ain’t.”

 

“Stars. Look, whatever yer tryin’ to prove...”

 

Yondu ticked them off – after checking around to make sure they were alone. “That I want you back, that I’m willin’ to do whatever I gotta?”

 

Kraglin’s mouth hung open. He closed it smartish, teeth interlocking with a click. “ _Stars,_ ” he said again. Then, with a sidelong glance – “Is this you actually admittin’ you was wrong?”

 

Yondu looked at him like he was stupid. Idjit must’ve taken a blow to the head during one of his matches. Yondu was being _repentant_ ; he hadn’t undergone a personality transplant.

 

“Didn’t have no choice at the time. I ain’t gonna apologize for takin’ the only available option, even if it were a shitty one.”

 

Kraglin scoffed. While his eyes weren’t capable of rolling, he made the motion with his head. Yondu hastened after him before he could stomp to his cage, drown him out under the clamor of their audience.

 

“Why d’you care so much? Ya hate kids.”

 

“Our kid,” Kraglin hissed. He turned fast as a snapping whip. One step and he was _there,_ in Yondu’s face. A shove, and Yondu’s back met the wall, slammed a few inches from the spikes of a mace.

 

Kraglin crowded him in, teeth drawn back far enough to prove his gums matched his navy fur.

 

“Our fuckin’ _kid,_ Yondu.”

 

“Ain’t _ours._ Y’know my bits don’t work like that. We tried enough times…”

 

“Shut _up._ ”

 

Yondu twisted. Useless. He couldn’t break free. Kraglin pinned him in place, a hand on each shoulder and a foot jammed between his boots. His nostrils flared with every hot gust of breath. His jaw cracked open, and Yondu fell into the black hole of his throat.

 

Memories swarmed. Teeth grazed his nape, then clamped on tight enough to scar. He was slammed over a dead bilgesnipe and fucked until he _screamed_. Those memories bludgeoned up from the dark little corner of his mind he’d stashed them in, a blizzard so fast and thick that he missed Kraglin’s next words entirely.

 

“Huh?”

 

Kraglin shook him. Yondu’s prosthetic clanged against the flat of a Ljostafar blade, hard enough to make static fizzle across his vision.

 

“Don’t gimme that. Ya _know_ the crap I went through. I don’t know _shit_ about this body, this fuckin’ _culture_. Had to go through that shit alone, but it woulda been so much worse if I were alone in a cage.”

 

 _You weren’t alone. You had me._ But saying that’d only get him clawed all the sooner.

 

Kraglin’s spit smacked Yondu’s cheek. It smeared his warpaint, threading bright webs through his beard. “How can ya not understand that?” he snarled. “You, of all people…”

 

The ceiling bounced. Yondu couldn’t hear what the crowds were screaming – the auditorium muffled the sound, like the report of plasma canons heard on a distant battlefield. They were getting impatient.

 

Kraglin dropped him, stepping away. Yondu locked out his legs before they tried to do something stupid like quivering. When he searched his mate’s face, he found nothing but contempt.

 

“Krags, _c’mon_.”

 

Kraglin backed away, haloed by the blue glow of his lift. “Lucky for you, I gotta wait for an audience before I can hit ya properly.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Thank you so, so much to everyone who's commented on this. You're the only reason I'm updating! I think I need a bit of a fandom break, as my IRL situation is rather stressful at the moment. I'm definitely not giving up on this fandom - it's too big a part of my life for that! But updates will be sporadic until I have time/energy to dedicate to fanfic again. But for real, all my commenters and everyone who leaves kudos - you're a delight to create things for, and you make me want to publish! So thank you for your support and your patience. x**


	8. I'm Gonna Start A Fight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **I promised myself I'd get something uploaded this week. Here it is!**

Lights.

 

They cranked on one after the next, sizzling amber. It was like staring at stars without an atmosphere in the way, bright enough to blind, to burn.

 

Could Kraglin see? He tracked using heat signatures, not vision. Yondu hoped this was disorientating for him, otherwise the match would be over sooner rather than later. He might not get the chance to put his plan into action.

 

The cheers rose as he found his feet, blinking away the daze. His eyes adjusted slowly, sorely.

 

He stepped forwards. Legs wide, chest thrust out, big ballsy grin plastered on for the world to see. 

 

Two vast screens unrolled over the bare metal columns that separated the stands. Kraglin and Yondu moved across them with a single beat of lag, walking around the colosseum’s vast ring, closing the distance between them.

 

“And now,” roared the Grandmaster's hype-man, striking a flamboyant pose. A deceptively small figure, he delivered his commentary from the summit of a podium, frolicking from one side to the other, sweeping his arms in extravagant circles in an endlessly energetic dance. “Our next two contenders! A new face to the battlefield – Yondu Dooyonta!”

 

Yondu shrugged. He'd been called worse.

 

“Facing off against one of our current top-grossing earners... It's him, ladies and gents and other such sentient creatures! Your favourite Beast-Boy, the Sapphire Fiend, the Clawed Menace... Kraglin Obfonteri!”

 

“How come they got yer name right?” Between the distance separating them and the boom of the cheering crowd, Kraglin didn't hear. Yondu snorted, scratching one side of his nose. “Huh. Yeah, yeah; look at you, Mister Popular.”

 

Kraglin never enjoyed the limelight. It didn't suit him. He was drab besides Yondu's big blue braggadocio. The sort of guy who existed as an afterthought in people's minds, an addendum, if they even remembered him at all.

 

Yondu-and-Kraglin, not the other way around.

 

Yondu hadn't realized how much he liked that. This - the Kraglin prowling around his side of the ring, flexing his shoulders so each ropy muscle stood out in sharp relief? It just felt...

 

Wrong.

 

Kraglin eyed Yondu up like he knew what he was thinking. No more talking. His scowl was a challenge, a call to arms - and okay, perhaps Yondu regretted not picking any up.

 

Kraglin liked his new body. He wore it with confidence – a word Yondu didn't associate with his ex-first mate. But it made sense, when he thought about it. Kraglin grew up in a form that wasn't his own. His Xandarian flesh was fake, a replica generated for his own protection. He was the cuckoo in the nest – or the A-Chiltarian in the Xandarian orphanage, more accurately.

 

Yondu could only imagine what it must be like, to finally have your limbs move with the power you'd always been convinced they should have, to not have to shy from fights that a corner of your hindbrain had always whispered you could win. Kraglin, for the first time in his life, was exactly who he was supposed to be.

 

But now, standing opposite him in a ring, hearing the glorious thrum of a crowd united by their chant of his name, Yondu had to face the sudden gaping, awful possibility that...

 

No.

 

Yondu squeezed his eyes shut – the commentator had yet to announce the match's start, so he didn't need to fear an attack while his guard was down.

 

Kraglin didn't need him anymore.

 

It was that simple. The strong lured the weak into their sphere of influence. The compulsion of a follower to be led was the only force in this galaxy stronger than gravity.

 

Kraglin had never been a leader – never _wanted_ to be, in fact. But here and now, in this body, hearing his own name thundered back at him by the adoring mass? The amplified roars that blasted them from all sides, as their audience whooped and cheered and stamped their heels to Kraglin's name?

 

“Kra- _glin,_ Kra- _glin,_ Kra- _glin!_ ”

 

He had _power._ Yondu didn't.

 

So why, in all seven hells, should Kraglin want him back?

 

Yondu swallowed. He thought this was just about the Collector. The deal, that stars-damned spunk sample.

 

He'd been wrong. This was about Kraglin. For once, it was _all_ about Kraglin. Yondu was the secondary character, the supporting actor, the footnote scribbled in the margin. Kraglin-and-Yondu.

 

And he _hated_ it.

 

“The moment you've all been waiting for!” The reverb hummed around the galleries; the sand skipped under Yondu's boots. He scanned the stadium, orientating himself.

 

The Grandmaster's box was unmissable: ridiculously ornate, tacky as the man himself, an intaglio of metals and neon strip-lights. There he sat, stroking the arrow-box on his lap while his snooty Asgardian filed his nails.

 

Yondu bared his teeth.

 

This was _his_ fault. He was the one who'd done this; the one who'd taken Kraglin away. And he was going to pay.

 

The Commentator raised a clenched fist. “Fight!” he bellowed, and the crowds exploded into cheers.

 

The Grandmaster met Yondu's eyes. One lid lowered in a powder-blue painted wink. Then Kraglin smashed into Yondu from the side,

 

Yondu ate dust.

 

Sand on his tongue. Grit up his nose, in his eyes.

 

Stinging, burning. Stink of old blood.

 

Yondu rolled. He kicked, once, twice, thrice. Boot into Kraglin's belly, bam-bam-bam, sharp and hard as a piston.

 

Kraglin coughed spit on his face. He lashed out, steel-bright claws.

 

Shit. One direct hit. That'd be it. Sliced, filleted, meat.

 

The swipe glanced off. That didn't make it harmless. Yondu's tank top shredded, along with the chest beneath.

 

“Ow – fuck!”

 

“First blood,” roared the commentator. The crowds bellowed their approval. Everyone in the stands had an individual refrain, but a few boomed above the rest.

 

 _Cut him up!_ Yondu heard. _Shred him, gut him! Rip him open, eat him raw! #_

 

Huh. Cheerful lot. Almost reminded him of his crew.

 

He scrabbled to a safe distance – or at least, out of slashing range – before he peeled his hand from the mess. It came away soaked. Pain seeped deeper the longer he looked at the wound, goring its tusks into his nerves.

 

Yondu stomped it down. No distractions.

 

He assured himself it wasn't mortal – three scored lines of varying depth, the two on the outside shallower than the center. That slit him diagonally over his heart.

 

He raised his gaze, meeting Kraglin’s, holding up his hand so the blood slithered from his fingertips.

 

He remembered. Running through the jungle, thorns gashing his bare arms. Crouched in a burrow, sunk knee-deep in mushrooms and rot. Hearing the monster on his trail, following the scent of fresh sanguine. The monster he’d once called a mate.

 

“Hope you ain’t feelin’ hungry.”

 

Kraglin’s long tongue flicked out. It stroked up a sticky talon, nicking itself on the tip. "Shoulda picked a weapon. You _idiot._ ”

 

Yondu licked dry lips. “Prefer it when ya call me ‘sir’.”

 

“Ya told me to stop that, remember? Back when ya made me take yer place, lead yer crew. Didn’t even fuckin’ bother askin’ what _I_ wanted.”

 

Here they went again. “And you told _me_ to come back from the dead. Look where it got us.”

 

“Oh no.” Kraglin shook his head. “This one’s all on _you._ ”

 

“Turn up the mics!” That was the Grandmaster, his voice cutting high overhead. “I want to hear what they’re saying! This is better than a s-soap opera!”

 

“Of course,” the commentator added, throwing in an exaggerated wink, “I haven’t yet revealed the _extent_ of this heart-rending story. Because you see, these blue beauties aren’t just enemies. They’re – drumroll please – _lovers._ ”

 

Cue appreciative ooh-ing from the crowd.

 

“ _Lovers_ ,” mimicked Yondu under his breath. His scathing voice echoed from speakers set high above, tucked above the spotlights.

 

“Oh yes,” said the commentator, undeterred. “What you’re seeing here, my dear citizens of Sakaar, is a passionate clash – a rivalry fueled by love lost and love lorn. It’s a magnificent tale – adopted half-gods, banishment and exile, Infinity Stones and more!”

 

“How does he know that?” Kraglin’s question repeated over and over – _how does he know that, how does he know that,_ ballooning up and down the stands.

 

The Grandmaster sniggered. “My brother and I had _quite_ the fascinating chat about you, d-darling.”

 

That bastard. Sure, Sakaar might float detached from the Andromedean galaxy, but that meant little to the Elder Race. Why Yondu ever expected the Collector to keep shtum about their deal, he didn’t know.

 

Shit. If the Collector blabbed to his brother, who was to say he didn’t have other entities on his speed-dial? Maybe even the One Who Knows himself? If Stakar found out Yondu was still alive – and, moreover, that he’d sold yet another child for personal gain…

 

Hands, gripping his collar. Shaking him as Yondu stood alone in the snow, his men lagging back to wait out the victor while Stakar’s flanked their captain in close formation. The neon lights of the Contraxian bordello flickering over them both, as Stakar’s knuckles bore into Yondu’s breastbone.

 

_You broke all our hearts._

 

“Shut up,” he said brokenly, voice crackling in his throat. He pointed up at the commentator, poised to launch into his next spiel. “You, shaddup. Right the fuck now.”

 

The Grandmaster chuckled. “Oh no! On, on with the show! Yondu Udonta, this is your life!”

 

“Sold to the Kree by his own parents,” the commentator said, emboldened by this imprimatur from his king. “Unwanted, unloved. Raised as a slave – not even owning his own body! Such tragedy, ladies and gents! It’s a touching story, for sure.” Yondu’s grimace disagreed. “And as for this one…” The commentator's pointer finger swivelled, following the spotlights that caught Kraglin in a stark white cage of criss-crossing beams. “Oh, his past is more interesting still. The A-Chiltarians were wiped off the face of the galaxy during the Xandarian expansion.”

 

Grumbles among the crowd. Seemed Sakaar was home to more than a few wayfinders from that neck of the galactic woods – they didn’t appreciate their empire being trash-talked, even if it was deserved. The commentator adjusted his tone, playing in key with his audience.

 

“So the Nova Corps, out of the kindness of their hearts –“

 

“Bullshit,” Kraglin muttered, not quite quiet enough to avoid being picked up by the mics.

 

“ – Took in a number of their young! This boy, this scion of a species, was raised not knowing his own nature. Imagine that, folks! To believe yourself to be one of the greatest races in the Andromeda galaxy, only to wake up one morning and discover that you’re a savage, feral _beast_!”

 

Kraglin stopped glowering at Yondu, finding a more fitting target on the podium high above. “Hey now. Thas’ just uncalled for. I ain’t no –“

 

“C’mon.” Yondu settled into a ready stance. “Let’s start fightin’ again. Maybe that’ll shut him up.”

 

Kraglin snorted. For a moment Yondu thought he'd defy him out of spite. But as many changes as the man had undergone, at his core, he remained the same. A decent fellow, as far as Ravagers went, and a hell of a lot less petty than Yondu.

 

“Good idea,” he said, forming fists.

 

Yondu nodded to them. The claws must be biting into his palms. “Ain’t gonna get your nails out again, darlin’?”

 

“I want this to be a fair fight.”

 

“Yer seven-foot-tall and got more teeth than the average bilgesnipe,” Yondu pointed out. “Why not admit it? Ya don’t wanna hurt me.”

 

“I don’t wanna kill you.” Kraglin cracked his knuckles, rolling his shoulders, limbering up those long gibbon-limbs. “Helluva big gap in between.”

 

“Two noble figures, outcast and ostracized from their people, living miserable lives surrounded by their foes! Swept together by the machinations of the stars themselves, falling lustily into one another’s arms, embracing, consummating their forbidden love –“

 

“Seem to remember,” said Yondu, as Kraglin started his prowling circle, matching every one of his slow steps, “first time we fucked, it were up a vent shaft. Took me a week to get all the dust out my pouch.”

 

“Liar,” Kraglin accused. His black lips twitched up at the edges, although that just could be anticipation. “You never clean your pouch.”

 

“A pouch, my wonderful audience, is how Centaurian males carry their young, nurturing them through their secondary gestation period. As you can see…” Overhead, the cameras zoomed on Yondu’s chest, the scraps from his ruined shirt. “His has been stitched up, at the hands of the monstrous Kree!”

 

Fewer grumbles this time. Apparently, Hala’s children were wise enough not to stray past Galaxy’s Edge.

 

“What a horrendous thing to do to a Carrier! Won’t you have pity on this poor, broken man?”

 

“Hey!” Yondu crossed his arms, hiding his ruined pouch from sight. “Let’s not get all anatomical here –“

 

“You should be lookin’ at  _me._ ” A growl, a crunch of clawed feet over sand. Yondu flung himself from Kraglin’s charge just in time. Sand scratched his raw chest, gritty sediment gathering under the skin. He coughed dust.

 

“Fuck.”

 

Kraglin spun, agile as the predator he resembled. He booted Yondu onto his back – who promptly grabbed his wiry calves, tangling the fur in his fingers.

 

He _yanked._ Kraglin yowled.

 

And, both legs pinned together in Yondu’s arms, it only took a lift – a grunt, a _heave_ – for Yondu to use his lower base of gravity to his advantage.

 

Kraglin teetered. Wind milled. And, with a kamikaze holler, angled his topple so his bony kneecaps stabbed Yondu in the chest.

 

Air exploded from his lungs. Yondu retched, gagging at the sour smack against the back of his throat.

 

Kraglin knelt above him, fist swung back. Yondu squirmed. Sand scraped long striations over his biceps, his prosthetic thudding the floor.

 

No escape. All his wriggling only made Kraglin clamp on harder, legs pinching Yondu’s arms to his sides.

 

Why did he hesitate? He could’ve hit him at _least_ ten seconds ago.

 

A tiny smile blossomed over Yondu’s face. _Sentiment._ Sometimes, it came in handy.

 

Then he realized Kraglin’s ears were pricked back. While his snarl folded his furry cheeks, his wide, multi-faceted eyes didn’t seem to be focused on Yondu.

 

“And so,” the Commentator said, having fast-forwarded to the juicy parts of the tale, “Obfonteri underwent his long-overdue transformation! Shock! Horror! Picture it – a Xandarian man, not unlike many of you (although a bit weedier, perhaps).”

 

“You’re weedy,” Kraglin growled.

 

“Sprouting fur, bones cracking and growing, mutating into the monster that stalks before you now! He chased his lover into the forest, driven by primitive desires – to fuck and to feast!”

 

Laughter. Loud, raucous, humiliating. Yondu understood being pissed – this was their dirty laundry, after all, being aired to an auditorium of strangers. But why had Kraglin frozen?

 

Of course. He didn’t remember any of it. As they lay together in the aftermath, shivering and thirsty, worn ragged by the friction of moving together, clawing together, writhing together for hours on end, Kraglin revealed his mind only swam back right there at the end, when Yondu finally gave up all hope of retaining dignity and begged him to come back.

 

He didn’t know about the bilgesnipe. The _scream,_ as he held Yondu down and pushed in deeper than nature ever intended anything to go.

 

Yondu hadn’t told anyone – not Quill, not Rocket, sure as hell not Kraglin. But it took a lot of medibeads before he could walk without pain.

 

By the time they crashed on Sakaar, he’d barely been twinging. The Collector couldn’t know about that. No way in hell.

 

Right?

 

Yondu writhed against Kraglin, bucking hard. “Who ain’t concentratin’ now?”

 

He punched up, a wild flail. Luck batted on his side for once. He caught Kraglin on the jaw, cracking him sideways. The commentator stopped jabbering long enough to crow.

 

“Finally, he fights back! But why, I ask you? What could tear two lovers out of each other’s embrace?”

 

Yondu couldn’t spare a glance at the royal box. He didn’t need to. He knew the Grandmaster would be drinking in every word as if he hadn’t composed this speech himself, barbed it so as to scour his new pets as deeply as possible.

 

As Kraglin swayed to the side, Yondu shoved himself under the arch of his legs. Freedom. He scrambled upright, knees and hips protesting, boots sliding on bloody sand.

 

Kraglin span to face him. Low-crouched, low-browed. His fangs glittered where they burst from jet-black gum.

 

“I’ll tell you,” came the commentator’s gleeful shout. “The loss of a child!”

 

The snarl fled Kraglin’s face. His ears drooped, the whiskers around his mouth emulating. His hands uncurled from their knots, claws tipped in his own tarry blood.

 

Yondu shook his head. “That’s enough," he said, and whistled.

 

The box, balanced on the Grandmaster’s bony thighs, jostled about a bit, then lay still.

 

Yondu whistled harder.

 

Any moment now. Any moment, his arrow would punch through the metal, glide through the commentator’s heart in a magnificent shower of sparks, and descend to his hand, so he could airlift Kraglin out of here. The Grandmaster had been kind enough to leave the domed top of the stadium open; Yondu intended on capitalizing.

 

But first, he needed his damn weapon to work.

 

“What the hell?” he yelled, stomping toward the Grandmaster’s elevated throne. “What the hell’ve ya done?”

 

The Grandmaster stroked the box, smile gruesome. The fingers of his other hand tangled in Loki’s raven-black hair.

 

“You thought I’d just stick y-your magic stick in anything? This here is genu, genuine _vibranium._ Nothing’s coming in and out, not without my vocal command – woah!”

 

Yondu whistled again, loud and piercing, enough to make Kraglin, who’d been stealthily closing on him from behind, clap his hands over his ears. It blew out the speakers, feedback blaring all around. And, throughout the chaos of the screaming crowd, Yondu’s arrow flew.

 

Still locked in its box.

 

That rattled every time it changed direction, swinging it perpetually off-course. But it flew nevertheless, and a fast-pace flurry of peeps had it accelerating.

 

The commentator realized his predicament. He looked around – but if his grandstand had been designed to prevent gladiators from climbing up, it also made it rather difficult for him to get down. He whirled, panic-stricken eyes filling the camera screen – before the arrow-bearing box clocked him between them, knocking him back against the railings.

 

He wavered there a moment. He bent backwards over the precipice, clawing for purchase on air. Then gravity took over.

 

The weight of his pudgy torso heaved his feet from the floor. He tipped over his fulcrum and into space, caterwauling the whole way.

 

Thump. Headfirst into the dust.

 

Yondu clapped sand from his blue-smeared palms. “Well,” he said cheerfully, plucking more from the stripes on his chest. “He ain’t gonna be walkin’ again. Or talkin’.”

 

“How – how dare you!” That was the Grandmaster, leaning over his balcony. For the first time since Yondu made his acquaintance, he looked genuinely incensed. “You come into my palace, I offer you my hos-hospitality –“

 

“You captured me and made me a slave,” Yondu pointed out.

 

“Where’s my remote – Loki, have you seen my shock remote? I’m going to knock him out.” The Grandmaster’s sneer was an ugly thing. Reminded Yondu of another one he’d seen, worn by a planet masquerading as a man, an ancient evil methuselah that saw all of creation as beneath him. “Let Ob-Obfonteri mount him, in the dirt where they belong. Filthy little _m-mongrels._ ”

 

Kraglin held up furred hands. “Woah. Y’all realize I ain’t _actually_ a mindless animal, right? Pass on the whole public claiming bullshit, yeah?"

 

It was pointless – the mic had cut off. How convenient. Yondu thinned his eyes at gallery, where Loki and the Grandmaster rummaged in search of their toy. The cap on his neck itched, but he knew from experience that tampering resulted in an automated zap. Last thing he wanted was to do the Grandmaster’s work for him.

 

“A-ha!” The Grandmaster stood, rumpled and flushed, brandishing a slim silver remote. He pointed it at Yondu, grin a sadistic slice.

 

Yondu cocked a brow. He whistled, a low and jaunty tune. The arrow box swung in a neat pirouette. It soared into the Grandmaster’s box and smacked the remote from his hands.

 

“No!”

 

It tumbled, bouncing once off the railing before following the Commentator down. It landed end-on in the dust, juddering like a knife.

 

Yondu sauntered over, picked it up. He took a wild guess as to which button was which, and pressed it.

 

Right choice. With a clink and a beep, the circle peeled off his neck, leaving the skin underneath prickling with tender static. It dropped to the floor. Yondu promptly stamped on it, grinding his boot heels until he heard the crunch of splitting wires.

 

There. Now they couldn’t recycle the damn thing.

 

“C’mon,” he snapped, holding out his hand. “We’re going.”

 

Another sharp whistle. The box stooped like a falcon, darting to the arena floor. It hovered on height with Yondu’s shins. He couldn’t exactly grip it like this – the box was too broad. He didn’t fancy sitting sidesaddle either. He hopped onto it like a surfboard, finding his balance, readjusting as it rolled around the arrow within.

 

“We’re getting out of here.”

 

Kraglin eyed his hand as if it had gone rancid. “What?”

 

Yondu snapped his fingers. “Come _on._ Quit dawdling. You _want_ me to leave you behind?”

 

Kraglin, rather than throwing himself into Yondu’s arms and thanking him through a sluice of tears, took a step back. “I didn’t never ask to be rescued.”

 

They didn’t have time for this. The Grandmaster might be nursing his sore wrist, but how long before he ordered guards to accost them, train their weapons and fire? Yondu couldn’t zip out of here at top speed, not without losing his footing. He certainly wasn’t going to be dodging plasma bolts – he relied on the spotlights to blind anyone who took a pot shot.

 

“Well, it’s happenin’! Hop aboard, Krags. We’re going home, me an’ you.”

 

Kraglin shook his head.

 

Why the fuck was Kraglin shaking his head? Yondu didn’t know, but he had a sickening suspicion Kraglin was going to tell him.

 

“I have a life here, Yondu. A home.”

 

“The fuck?” Yondu’s outspread arms spanned the colosseum, the fluorescent lights winking messages in Morse around the Grandmaster’s sumptuous, silk-lined stand. “Yer a fuckin’ freakshow attraction! They don’t give no fucks about you, Krags. They just wanna watch you kill and be killed" -

 

Kraglin shook his head. “My matches ain't to the death! They’re kinda fun, y’know? I ain’t never had a body that can pack a punch before.” His buggy eyes narrowed, as much as they could, squashed by his lowering brows. “Yer just angry I gotta life outside you!”

 

Yondu shook his head. “Look at yerself. A stars-damned slave.”

 

“Yeah well.” Kraglin paused long enough to lick his eyeballs back to their usual glossy sheen. “I don’t care. Ain't so bad.”

 

“No.” Yondu flew the arrow closer, bending his knees to combat the shifting box. Like this, he was actually taller than his mate – made a nice change, that. “No, Krags, ya gotta care. Don’t matter how _fun_ its been so far. That bastard with the blue eyeshadow _owns_ you. D’you even – can ya even understand what that means? _He could do anythin’ to ya._ Anythin’, Krags.”

 

Kraglin tilted his head at him. He observed the constrained shiver in his muscles, the deep-chiselled grooves around his mouth and eyes.

 

“He ain’t the Kree,” he said eventually. “An’ I ain’t a weak lil' brat what needs protection. ‘Specially not yours.”

 

The Grandmaster recovered from his swoon. He held his throbbing hand away from his body, gesturing for his staff. Loki presented it to him, smirking, and slunk back to his seat, propping his chin on his fist.

 

“ _This_ should be interesting.”

 

“Yondu Udonta.” The Grandmaster’s voice boomed from every corner of the amphitheatre. Yondu snorted, wheeling the arrow around to face him.

 

“So ya _can_ say my name.”

 

“You,” continued the Grandmaster, mellifluous on the cusp of sing-song, “have become quite the l-little _pest._ ”

 

“Yeah, I try.” Yondu turned back to his mate. In that moment, he let it all fade – the mumbles from the crowd, as the realization dawned that this wasn’t all part of the show, the sound of bets being laid and units changing hands. He doubted much of the scrip was being placed in favor of his victory.

 

But none of that mattered. The only thing, the only person on this squalid cesspit of a planet he cared about stood before him, shoulders hunched, fur rippling in the torrid breeze. Sand granules clung, striping him gold. His huge red eyes centred on Yondu.

 

So different from the mousy git Yondu lured into the ventilation pipe aboard the  _Starhawk._ So different from the man who stood beside him when he lost everything, who grudgingly helped him raise a Terran he neither wanted nor cared for, because Yondu wanted Quill and Kraglin knew better than to get between his captain and his greed.

 

And because it was the _right thing to do,_ of course – not that either of them acknowledged that.

 

“Hey.” He reached out to cup his bony jaw, feel those serrated carnivore-teeth rub against his palm. “Hey, baby. C’mon. Last chance.”

 

He couldn’t say _please_. He needed to – fortified himself for it, gathered the air and shaped his mouth to fit it out. But it lodged in his throat and died there, as Kraglin leaned into the touch for all of a second – then, before Yondu let himself hope, pulled away.

 

“Bye, Yondu,” he said.

 

The arena bounced, shook, a rataplan of stamping feet, a chorus of boos. There was so much dust in the air; each breath sandpapered Yondu’s lungs. Made it damn hard to whistle. That was all he was choking on, of course.

 

He found the note on the third try.

 

Armoured guardsmen clanked onto the sand. Kraglin retreated, hands above his head.

 

Yondu looked up. The spotlights blasted his eyes dry. Like staring into the heart of a supernova. The glare ate away at him until he punctured the brilliant shell of light that formed the arena’s roof and shot out into the night.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **This could probably use more editing, but I'm exhausted. I'll upload the next chapter on that Taserdu fic soon, because anon hate only makes me more powerful. But for now... Naptime. Comments and kudos are, as always, treasured. I love all of you guys who've been giving this fic your support. Thank you so much. x**


	9. Na-na-na-na-na-na-na

Kraglin dropped to his knees. The guards rumbled orders behind him; the crowds churned above. 

 

He tipped back his head, watching the spotlights swallow Yondu’s heat signature. Five seconds, ten heart beats. Then his once-captain was gone, lost to the sticky summer sky.

 

Regrets? Only a million. But you had to stand by your decisions in this galaxy. You mustn’t step in anyone’s footsteps, because inevitably, your paths would diverge. And on that day, if you couldn’t find your own way, you got lost.

 

Like Yondu got lost first time around, after the council chamber opened and he discovered only Aleta and Martinex cast their votes for him to stay.

 

Decades later, Yondu fitted the prosthetic to Kraglin’s head and told him to strike out alone. It wasn’t the same circumstances and it certainly wasn’t the same stakes, but Kraglin nearly broke too.

 

Nearly. He hadn’t then, and he wouldn’t now. No matter how much he might want to.

 

The Grandmaster’s godling wrapped an arm around his waist, flying the pair down in a whirlpool of flappy gold robes. They landed neatly, the mage clearing his throat so the Grandmaster knew it was safe to disentangle himself and open his eyes.

 

“Oh dear,” he crooned. His sandals crunched on the sand, and he used his staff like a fancy cane, jabbing the floor every second step. “It looks like I’ve lost the ch-challenger for my Champion. I suppose I’ll have to make do – although it _is_ a mighty shame. The crowds do like you, after all.”

 

Kraglin frowned. The gladiators didn’t, as a rule, get to watch the Champion fight. The Grandmaster preferred it to be a surprise. But whatever beast they kept locked in the castle’s dungeons, being sent to face it was the equivalent of a death sentence.

 

“What d’you mean?” he asked, ignoring the hum of the shock stick perilously close to his neck fur. Kraglin was here willingly; he hadn’t sampled what the little disc stuck to his neck fur could do. He’d seen the results though, and that wasn’t something that he fancied experiencing.

 

The crowd remained, for the most part, in their seats. The flighty few who scarpered at Yondu's whistle crept back, rubbernecking from the aisles.

 

Topaz stomped forwards. Her bun pulled her hair back tight enough to stretch out the crinkles on her face, like a raisin plumped with water. “You will address the Grandmaster with the respect his station deserves!”

 

A slave, Yondu called him. Hardly. Kraglin just fought in exchange for food and a place to bed down. It was transactional, not obligatory.

 

So what if he couldn’t walk away? Ravaging weren't no different. If he’d quit on Yondu back in the good ol' days, the old bastard might’ve hunted him down to make sure his secrets stayed that way.

 

 _No he wouldn’t,_ mumbled the little voice inside Kraglin, the one that tried to forgive the git every trespass as quickly as he committed them. _Yondu would never do that to you. You know he cares far more than he lets on._

 

Kraglin had been ignoring that voice a lot, as of late. He put his practice to use.

 

“I stayed,” he told the Grandmaster, remaining on his knees. He dug his claws into the dirt, turning over the blossoms of spilled blood. Blue blood; _Yondu’s_ blood.

 

“I could’ve gone. I coulda taken his hand – but I didn’t. Whas all this for?”

 

He gestured to the pikemen, the remote-control Loki retrieved from under their king’s dais. The Grandmaster’s smile stretched gruesomely, and Kraglin, for the first time, remembered just what this man was.

 

An Elder. A being so ancient that the present was fleeting as a dream. And – of course – Yondu had just pissed him off.

 

“It really isn’t fair,” the Grandmaster said, cupping Kraglin’s bristly cheek. Kraglin forced himself to stay still. He had no reason to flinch from this wrenlike creature, with all his jittery energy and whipcrack grins.

 

Except for those eyes, of course. Those bottomless, smile-creased eyes.

 

“What do you think, Loki d-dear? Isn’t it rather tyrannical of me, to punish this one for his lover’s crimes?”

 

“Ex,” Kraglin tried to say, but his tongue sat stodgy in his throat and refused to waggle out the word.

 

Loki twiddled the remote between slender hands. “It _does_ seem a touch excessive. And I know how much you hate the ‘T’ word.”

 

The Grandmaster tutted, patting Kraglin’s whiskers. “But I want to _hurt_ Udonta, darling. He deserves it, after that performance! What a snub – for him to es, escape me in the middle of a match! I’ve already sold all the tickets for his spat with the Champion. It would be _terrible_ to let that go to w-waste.”

 

Loki’s elegant shoulders raised and dropped again. “You raise an excellent point,” he said. He aimed the remote at Kraglin and pushed the button down.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Yondu whistled.

 

He whistled until his lungs burned and his arrow faltered, so high that the cold gnawed on his face like the frostbite from the void.

 

He whistled until he couldn’t whistle any more, until he looked down and saw certain death in the pyres and spires of the junk mountains five thousand feet below.

 

He stood on the arrow box. Then he sat. Then he floated it gently down to earth, landing in an alley not far from where he burst open the Sakaaran scout ships. Returning to the scene of crime was risky, but Yondu didn’t care.

 

Yondu didn’t care about anything.

 

Not the chatter of his teeth, not the goosepimpled flesh that puckered up and down his bare biceps, not the sting of the blood-dribbling stripes on his chest. The only thing he gave a damn about in the entirety of existence, was finding a bar where he could adjust his blood-alcohol ratio to 1:5.

 

Yondu ran his hands along the box, searching for a seam. No dice. His arrow lay encased in metal, the vibranium welded shut around it.

 

Fuck. He was never getting into it. And suddenly this was all too much – the rank reek of the garbage pits, the thought of the foetus gestating in a test tube deep within the Collectors’ lair, the vacuous absence of Kraglin at his side.

 

Yondu slammed the arrow box into the nearest wall. It punched straight through, wet wood buckling. The occupants shrieked. Whoops.

 

Yondu extracted himself from the half-rotten timbers, each splinter adding to the blaze as his numb fist thawed.

 

“I’m gettin’ fucked up,” he told the terrified family, cowering from the streetlight that split their dank burrow like a harpoon. “An’ then I’m gettin’ fucked. Don’t need Kraglin. S’okay. If he don’t need me, I don’t need him neither.”

 

Yondu stomped towards the tavern where he and Valkyrie had their stand-off. A tarpaulin billowed over the broken roof, but the ceiling girders listed at such an angle the barman would have to be mad to risk life and limb to see what stock survived the battle. Luckily, 'mad' summed Yondu up.

 

He stepped over cracked metal plates, sheared along the grain by the force of the Valkyrie’s assault. Dust, stirred up by the tramp of his boots, pecked him on each cheek. He flapped it irritably away.

 

The infrastructure around here was negligible – a series of lanterns lit the streets, patched together from salvage and scrap. The one directly outside bled light into the bar like pus from a boil.

 

It illuminated the sticky puddles, the smashed glass. And the lone surviving bottle, along with the woman currently swigging out of it.

 

Yondu groaned. “Not you."

 

Valkyrie held up her finger. She continued to chug, eyelashes hovering at half-mast. Yondu tracked the rapid drain of spirits with something that approached admiration. Or at least, it would be admiration if his dulled brain could contemplate such a thing.

 

He felt like he'd abandoned a part of himself as he flew through the night. Split away from it, dropping back to earth while it soared on, like one of those primitive rockets that had to dispose of its fuselage to break atmosphere.

 

Off it zoomed, up, up, up past Sakaar’s hazy stratosphere, mimicking a man and his son as they flew away from a bursting planet almost a year and a half before.

 

Kraglin was gone. Kraglin was happy. Kraglin wasn't coming back.

 

Valkyrie shook the last of the drops into her mouth. Her belch jarred him back to his senses, impressively long and loud. It almost had the tilting walls collapsing, rubble pouring from the attic in an avalanche.

 

Yondu pushed a dangling rafter. It swung, a morose pendulum, still nailed to the splintered ceiling by its far end.

 

Valkyrie watched him. “You’re a sorry sack of shit.”

 

“A sorry sack of shit who came here to get drunk and dicked. You can’t help with either. I don't think."

 

“Gross. You're not my type.”

 

“You're not _mine._ ” Lie – Yondu had, until recently, been shacking up with a big shaggy navy monster, and a wet-eyed dweeb before that. It wasn’t like he had standards. But at the end of the cycle, this woman was Asgardian.

 

She was way too old for him.

 

Valkyrie snorted, blasting him with liquor breath. Hopefully the majority had evaporated from the spilled casks around the bar, otherwise this place was an explosion-in-waiting. “Well, I'm glad we got that sorted out.”

 

Yondu shook his head. He wasn't in the mood for banter. “Why the hell're you here, girlie? If yer lookin' to take me back...” He whistled his box to jab at her end on. “I ain't goin' easy on ya this time.”

 

Valkyrie licked her sticky booze-moustache, then the rim of the bottle for good measure. “Oh, I'm not going to _take_ you. You're going to go yourself.”

 

She had his attention. Yondu tentatively leaned his arm on a stool and, once certain it wasn't going to collapse from under him, migrated his ass there instead. “What d'you mean?”

 

“I mean that when I tell you the Grandmaster is gonna make your boyfriend fight the Challenger in your place, you're _obviously_ going to do the heroic thing.”

 

Fuck. Yondu hadn't even _thought..._

 

Valkyrie sniggered. She straddled her stool facing him, one boot propped on the fragment of a rung while the other dragged through the debris. She raised her empty bottle in salute. “Bet you're wondering why I'm helping you. Y'see, I made a bet. You need to get killed by the Champion, or I lose my earnings for the month.”

 

The Grandmaster must’ve opened the pool early. No wonder he’d been so furious at Yondu’s escape. This would cost him dearly.

 

Yondu cleared his throat. “Interestin’,” he said. “But I need a bit more convincin’.”

 

“Huh?” Valkyrie made to swig, realized not a dram of spirits remained and dropped her bottle to shatter with its compatriots, carpeting the floor in a sharp and icy sea. “Thought I wasn’t your type.”

 

“You ain’t. But'chu got fists, an’ I remember ya sayin’ you wanna fight.”

 

Valkyrie cocked a brow at the slashes on Yondu’s chest. “You just fought, old man. You really wanna pick another one?”

 

“I always wanna fight.”

 

“Yeah, you and the Champion are gonna get along great.” Valkyrie booted her stool, gentle so as not to snap its legs off. “This’s part of some big ol’ pity party, isn’t it? You just got dumped –“

 

“Was already dumped.”

 

“ _Double-_ dumped, in front of the world.”

 

“What does that got to do with the fact we ain’t punchin’ each other right now?”

 

Valkyrie’s gaze shifted away. “Punching someone who wants to be hit is no fun.”

 

“No,” Yondu growled. He leaned to mingle their breath: sour booze met bad teeth and blood. “It’s a _moot-tually benny-ficial arrangement._ ”

 

Valkyrie stood. Yondu held his ground. Getting off her chair brought her close enough that their chests brushed whenever they drew a breath. “I didn’t know you knew words of more than two syllables.”

 

“I’m a man of many surprises.”

 

“Huh.” Rather than dashing his head hard enough against the bar to spur a concussion – maybe even (Yondu dared hope) a coma – Valkyrie stepped away. The rubble made for uneven terrain, but she didn’t stumble once as she strode for the door.

 

“I need you to fight the Champion – that means I can’t kill you myself. But what I can do…” She twisted, glancing back at him over the curve of a sleek brown shoulder. “Is get you that rebound you’re looking for. Not here though. I’m a mighty fine wingman, but this bar’s a bust.”

 

“No thanks to us.”

 

“Look.” Valkyrie crossed to the doorway. She stood silhouetted in front of lantern, light spilling around her. It foamed through her split ends, a halo she didn’t deserve. “You had a shitty break up. This will help. Trust me, I’ve had my fair share.”

 

“I ain’t,” said Yondu. It was supposed to come out chipper, but it got stuck halfway.

 

Valkyrie groaned. “Stars. Don’t tell me you and Beastie boy were exclusive.”

 

Yondu’s laugh held about as much humor as the average mass grave. “Over thirty years.”

 

“Hm. What’s the average life span for your species?”

 

“Hundred for me, seventy for him.”

 

Valkyrie’s eyes popped wide. “Shit. Thirty years is. Uh. A long time.”

 

Yondu nodded. He stayed there, slumped with one hand braced on the bar counter while the other clutched the shredded skin on his chest.

 

Valkyrie shook her head. “You’re a sorry sack of shit.”

 

“An’ you ain’t good at makin’ folks feel better about themselves.”

 

“I know. But I got money on your death. You just have to die in that arena, tomorrow at noon – so long as you manage that, I’m satisfied. Getting you a drink and a man is _charity_. You could at least act grateful.”

 

Yondu glowered at the relics of their destruction: the wires dangling like jungle creepers, the stale, smoke-greased strip of night sky beyond. He didn't say a word.

 

“Last night alive,” Valkyrie told him quietly. The whisky on her breath almost overpowered the sour tang from the garbage heaps that loomed on the city’s outskirts like dunes in an encroaching desert. “Might as well spend it with someone.”

 

Yondu couldn’t very well say that he wanted to spend it with Kraglin. They both already knew.

 

“Okay,” he said, gruff enough he could pretend it was grudging. “Okay. You win. Still a lotta effort to go to for one round of winnings though. You sure you ain't just feelin' sorry for me?”

 

That won him his punch – delivered lightly, to the ribs under his wound. “It's a big pay-out.”

 

“Sure, sure.”

 

“Ugh. Look, I got gauze, sterile and all. If you shut up, I’ll fetch you a bandage before we hit the bar so you can go to the afterlife without blood poisoning. Deal?”

 

Yondu shrugged. It wasn’t like he had anything better to do. 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

“Hey, he's awake!”

 

“Engine overheatin',” Kraglin moaned. “S'gonna... s'gonna blow...”

 

“No engines blowing here.” Wait – he knew that voice. Jugo. That was Jugo. But Jugo was no Ravager, and that meant...

 

Kraglin bolted upright.

 

The remote. Loki. The Grandmaster's slinky grin.

 

_Yondu._

 

“That bastard,” he growled. “How come I always wind up stuck with his mess?”

 

Jugo crouched down, close enough that Kraglin could see the faint chitter in their mandibles. “You're not brain dead! That's a relief. The Grandmaster said that if you didn't wake up, one of us had to fight the Champion in your stead.”

 

Kraglin slumped. Brain death sounded appealing.

 

“I'm sorry.” That was a new voice – not one he instantly recognized. Kraglin twisted, navigating through the maze of heat signatures and scents until he located its source.

 

The Kronan. His rocky flesh ran cooler than most; Kraglin had to concentrate to pick out the parameters of his big, blockish form.

 

“What d'you got to be sorry for? This's my dumbass captain's fault. No one else's.”

 

“I mean, excepting the man who enslaved us against our will...” Korg trailed off. “It was more an empathy thing, y'know? 'I'm sorry he left you too'. That sort of nonsense.”

 

“Uh, no. I turned him down – in case the rest of y'all weren't watching.”

 

Jugo shook their head. “The show cut out after he whistled.”

 

Of course it did. Kraglin sighed, heaving himself upright and staggering to the wash racks. Sand caked his fur, making it crunchy to the touch.

 

Jugo bobbed after him. “Didn't you hear us, Krags? You're due to fight _the Champion._ He-who-stomps-on-all-he-sees -”

 

“That probably sounds snappier in yer native lingo.”

 

Jugo rubbed their leg stalks in abject distress. “Kraglin, this is not a fight you are expected to survive. And while I'm glad it is you who will fall beneath he-who-stomps-all-he...”

 

“Jus' call him the damn Champion, already.”

 

“...I will still miss you, brother.”

 

Arms enfolded him, snaking around from behind. Before Kraglin could tense more joined them: thicker, warmer.

 

Enga. Another added his weight to the crush, and another. Skary nuzzled Kraglin's belly with a buzz. Even Korg clapped him on the back, despite having known him for less than two days. Kraglin, for some unfathomable reason, thanked the stars his new body didn't feature tear ducts.

 

People would miss him if he died.

 

They would miss _him._ Not Yondu. This was about _him._ His friends. His people. Those _he'd_ made a connection to, all on his own.

 

Kraglin swallowed shakily and licked his eyeballs.

 

“Mind if I get that shower?” he croaked, patting at the nearest limb. The gladiators obligingly loosened their grip, but that warm embrace accompanied Kraglin as he stood beneath the spray, and long into the night beyond.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

Three pitchers of an unpronounceable strain of Kalzoiran moonshine and one moderately-endowed Kymellian later, Yondu headed back to Valkyrie’s ship.

 

“You didn’t pull a runner,” was her first observation. Yondu pointedly exaggerated his limp. “Fair. I don’t have a bandage for that, in case you were wondering.” Yondu made his patient way up the gang ramp. “Or a diaper. Stars, what possessed you to choose the guy who's _literally_ hung like a horse?”

 

In truth, the alcohol made his head spin at far greater velocity than the sex. Unconvinced of his ability to get through a mattress-bouncing session without saying Kraglin’s name, he gave his conquest a stilted jerk that left the both of them as unsatisfied as each other. He feigned his limp for Valkyrie’s benefit.

 

“Yer upholstery’s safe. I got holes down there to spare.”

 

Valkyrie, wisely, decided not to ask. “So you’re ready then,” she said. “Last meal, and all of that.”

 

Yondu raised her an imaginary toast, lost his balance, and puddled miserably on her floor. “Liquor lunch.”

 

“It’s the middle of the night; more like a midnight snack.” Valkyrie tenderly booted him until his limbs piled beyond the sealing line for the airlock. Then she reeled up the ramp, locked it in, and activated her autopilot, stepping over Yondu’s prone body on her way to the cockpit. “You’ve got enough time to sleep it off before your big match. I’d wish you luck, but –“

 

“Yer pay cheque’s on the line,” Yondu croaked. But he said it with a grin, and through the washy blur of booze in his bloodstream, it almost felt genuine.

 

Kraglin might want nothing more to do with him. Kraglin might’ve given up on him, like Quill gave up on him and Stakar before him.

 

But Quill came back. Stakar would welcome him into the fold, if Yondu only let him. And while the universe didn’t treat optimism kindly, preferring to dash hopes before they formed, there was still a chance – just a chance – that Kraglin wasn’t lost to him forever. He’d never find out if he let the goober die.

 

Engines revved, rumbling through Yondu as if he’d collapsed on a massage plate. What to most people sounded deafening was to an ex-Ravager a lullaby. He drifted along that verge, in and out of consciousness as Sakaar’s lights dribbled through the dirty glass.

 

The beams fizzled across his face and the surrounding floor, flooding the ship with the swirl of colors under a rinsed paint palette. When reality became indistinguishable from the dream, Yondu closed his eyes and slept.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Mostly unedited but eeeeey new chapter! :D Thank you to all my wonderful commenters.**


	10. My Ex'll Start A Fight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Almost there! Only one more chapter to go.... And uh. I'm sorry in advance. x**

Judgement day.

 

Challenge day.

 

Death day.

 

The day Kraglin faced the Champion.

 

He walked into the arena with his head held high. No sense not making his last match one to remember.

 

The other gladiators, as was custom, mooched about their underground tunnel, nothing to do but await the outcome. In a show of solidarity, no bets had been cast.

 

Kraglin supposed that made sense. What was the point in betting, when no one expected him to survive?

 

Would Yondu have had a chance against this monster? Perhaps. But Yondu wasn't here, and as usual, Kraglin was the second-best choice: Yondu-lite, the lesser version of the legend.

 

He might cut his own figure now, with his new height and the fur and that double-row of fangs. But even on Sakaar, several parsecs from the rest of the populated galaxy, it still felt like as soon as Yondu had strutted on stage the day before – and proceeded to murder the commentator, backtalk the Grandmaster and fly from the arena atop a whistle-steered box – he stole the show.

 

Not today.

 

Who knew, Kraglin told himself, as he waved to the crowds? Perhaps this would actually work in his favor. He was the first A-Chiltarian to grace their Colosseum, so he might have the element of surprise. He could get in close, feign defencelessness, then - slash, swish! Out with the Champion's eyeballs.

 

No harm in hoping. Right?

 

The Grandmaster presided over the ring. His Asgardian smirked beside him, flipping a knife between his fingers in a style that reminded Kraglin uncomfortably of his own, back from the days when he didn’t have claws. If he tried that same trick now, he’d probably chop off one of his newly-lengthened fingers.

 

How could they do this? Hadn't he done everything they wanted? He hadn't betrayed them when he had the chance – so why would they betray him?

 

What was it Yondu said? _They can do anything to you_. That was what it meant to be a slave.

 

Kraglin sneered up at the Grandmaster’s box. “Come on!” he roared. “Show me what'chu got!”

 

“So you want to meet my Champion, do you K-Kraglin? Or are you perhaps just desperate for death?”

 

“Only death I wanna see today,” growled Kraglin, “is yours, Grandmaster.”

 

Various _oohs_ from the crowd. None of them sounded convinced – more like they were watching a pantomime.

 

Undeterred, Kraglin raised his arm. The talon at its far end marked a line that ended at the Grandmaster's throat.

 

“Once I've done with your Champion, I'm comin' for ya.”

 

Big words. Words the old Obfonteri would never have dared say. But then again, the old Obfonteri would never have gotten into this situation in the first place, would he?

 

The Grandmaster drew himself up. “Very well!” he called shrilly. “Kraglin Obfonteri, prepare to meet your demise! Open the gate!”

 

The girl – the Valkyrie – detached from the shadows behind him. She murmured something in his ear. The Grandmaster turned, forgetting to cover his mic in his frustration.

 

“Yes, yes dear. I know it's not yet midday. But the crowd is all here – they're all w-waiting! They want to watch this usurper perish!”

 

The crowd corroborated. They bellowed almost as loud as the monster stampeding along the opposite corridor.

 

Kraglin froze. His head turned, ears swivelling to pinpoint the noise. Big. Something big was coming. It ran hot as a furnace, filling each of Kraglin's bug-eye lenses with a brilliant red-white glow.

 

“Oh hell,” muttered the Valkyrie, close enough to the Grandmaster that his mic picked it up.

 

“What is it, d-dear?”

 

“Puppet drive's malfunctioning. I think someone might be trying to steal my ship.”

 

The Grandmaster flapped a hand, eyes rolling for the heavens. “It's a _ship,_ darling. I'll buy you another one, in commiseration for wasting one of your captives and losing the other.”

 

Kraglin flexed his claws. He faced the grand gates, towards which his opponent thundered like a raging bilgesnipe.

 

Kraglin had killed bilgesnipe before. This guy would get the same treatment. Right?

 

“I give you,” the Grandmaster called, pushing Valkyrie from his podium. “The one, the only Champion of the Arena! I give you... the Incredible Hulk!”

 

“Well, that's a dumb ass name,” Kraglin muttered, before the gates smashed open and the beast battered through. “Oh.”

 

Okay, so it sort-of made sense. When you came face-to-face with that much bulging green beef, _incredible_ was one of the very few words that came to mind. Along with 'fuck', 'shit', and ‘well, I’m dead’.

 

Kraglin took a step back. “Hey, big guy,” he said.

 

The Hulk stomped.

 

The auditorium shook. Dust gusted up in a miniature sandstorm, stinging the tips of Kraglin’s ears. He corrected himself: “Very, very big guy.”

 

Those ears flattened tight to his skull as the beast _bellowed_. It shook its head from side to side, great wads of spit slapping the sand. It thumped the arena wall so hard that a crack zigzagged through the chrome finish – eliciting a heartfelt sigh from the Grandmaster. Then it lumbered forth.

 

“Smash,” it said.

 

“That’s it, my Champion!” The Grandmaster clapped his hands, school-girlish with glee. “Smash him! Smash him!”

 

Kraglin eyed up the monster's fists. Each was larger than he would be if he hugged his knees.

 

One punch. Then it’d be over. Crunch, splat, no more Kraglin.

 

Screw this. He had more to live for. He had Yondu – no matter how much the guy had pissed him off. He had his friends below the auditorium. Hell, he had a fucking child. A child growing up thinking they were unloved, their only purpose in life to be the pet of a mad Elder. An experiment, a zoo project, a slave.

 

Kraglin didn’t want kids. Never had, until he woke up on that asteroid, Yondu’s fingers tangled shakily in his pelt. But even after his breed-instinct faded, he wouldn’t wish such a fate on any kid, least of all his own.

 

He’d seen what that sort of life did to Yondu, after all.

 

He scampered sideways, staying out of swinging range. “You don’t gotta do this,” he told the beast – the Hulk. Its thick green lips turned down.

 

“Stop running. Little bug – puny bug. Hulk _crush_ bug.”

 

“No! No Hulk don’t gotta crush bug!” Kraglin pointed to the box. The grandmaster watched the match with avid eyes, Loki feeding him plump red grapes, still shimmering with dew. “He’s the one keeping you captive! Smash him instead!”

 

Hulk appeared to consider it. But then he shook his heavy head. “Granny feeds Hulk. Granny lets Hulk _smash._ ”

 

“It’s ‘the Grandmaster’,” said the Grandmaster peevishly, but he stopped pouting when Loki kissed his ear.

 

“Hulk like to smash,” Hulk continued, boxing Kraglin back towards his locked gate.

 

The Hulk's skin looked tougher than most ship hulls; Kraglin's claws would barely scratch the surface. As soon as he got close enough to grab, Hulk would take his head in one hand and his legs in the other, and pull until he split down the middle. This wasn’t a match. It was an execution.

 

“Hulk want to smash bug. Stop running, bug!”

 

Bug did not. Bug waited until the last possible moment, licking the dust from his eyes, pulse reverberating through every wiry limb. Then he flung himself forwards.

 

Hulk’s arm swooped harmlessly overhead. The whoosh of displaced air smacked Kraglin on the rump. His choreographed tumble under the Hulk’s legs faltered, and he hit the ground harder than intended, sand scraping his cheek. He forced himself to roll, certain that at any moment Hulk would stomp down and crush him.

 

Hulk wheeled around. His knuckles drove into the dust where Kraglin had just been.

 

The boom shook the stalls. The crowds oohed, aahed, gasped.

 

The Hulk extracted his fist from the floor. It left a crater, hemmed with drizzling sand.

 

Kraglin came to a standstill on his back, gasping. His shoulder hurt, his back and his left leg too. Not badly, but enough to slow him down. Enough that the next punch, he might not dodge.

 

So why had the Hulk yet to stomp forwards and squash him?

 

Kraglin licked his eyes clean of sand once again. He gawped at the ship that hung over the arena, dipping its nosecone to the grandmaster in a mocking bow.

 

“Hi, y'all,” said the pilot.

 

Kraglin should’ve known. The bastard could never resist an entrance.

 

“That’s your ship!” he heard the Grandmaster shout. “How did he get your ship?”

 

“I don’t know,” came the Valkyrie’s smooth reply. “I told you, I could tell someone was messing with my puppet drive. I just didn’t expect _him_ to be dumb enough.”

 

“Must be suicidal with grief,” said Loki boredly, popping a grape between his thin white lips. “Honestly. Mortals.”

 

“I smell treachery,” Topaz growled. “Grandmaster, you would be wise to toss this Valkyrie in with the brawl. Let’s see how long she lasts against your pet –“

 

“But look on the bright side,” the Valkyire continued, as if she couldn't hear. “Looks like our bet’s still on!”

 

Topaz snorted. “ _Everyone_ placed their money on the Champion. You’ll hardly be raking in the winnings.”

 

Valkyrie flashed a bright sliver of a grin. “Not _everyone,_ ” she said.

 

Meanwhile, the Hulk batted at the buzzing craft as if it were a particularly irritating mosquito. “Go away,” it groused. “Hulk smash bug.”

 

“Fraid I can’t let ya do that,” called Yondu cheerfully. “He’s mine to smash.”

 

That had better be an innuendo. Kraglin didn’t fancy having ten tons of spaceship parked on him.

 

Thankfully, the Valkyrie chose that moment to intervene. “Hey, you!” she cried, one boot parked on the Grandmaster’s balcony rail. “Big blue a-hole!”

 

“It’s not _that big._ Stars, you sleep with one Kymellian” –

 

Kraglin frowned. “What Kymellian?”

 

“Nothin’.”

 

“Shut it!” the Valkyrie yelled. “Blue, you better get my ship out of there right now! If a single wire’s out of place…”

 

“Cool yer damn tits, woman.” Yondu hovered the spaceship over the stands, shrugged, and began his descent. It took the audience five seconds to realize he wasn't stopping, and a further ten to scramble from his self-allocated parking spot. Not all of them made it. Kraglin couldn't bring himself to care. “There. Happy?”

 

Valkyrie snorted. “Win this match first.”

 

“Thought ya wanted me dead?” Yondu shook his head at her. He glared at the man by her side, who gripped the arms enough of his gold throne tight enough to contort the metal. “Hey, you. Grandmaster. Ya wanna open my arrow box and lemme fight, or what?”

 

“You came back,” the Grandmaster spat. “For him?”

 

Yondu popped the cockpit glass, slithering to straddle the ship’s blockish nosecone. “Course I did!” he called. “Idiot’s my mate. Now unlock my damn box, an' let's have ourselves a fight.”

 

Those cold, ancient eyes thinned. “Very well," said the grandmaster. "B-box? Unlock.”

 

Click. Creak.

 

“ _Finally.”_ Yondu hopped onto the edge of the grandstand, a solid ten meters off the sand. Then he jumped, and whistled.

 

His arrow shot to his hand. It carried him down, a la Mary Poppins – whoever the fuck that might be. He winked at Kraglin (who responded in a very mature fashion, by snorting and feigning that he wasn't impressed in the slightest). Then, at last, he turned to the Hulk.

 

“Hiya, big boy. Wanna play?"

 

Hulk stomped. “Little blue _talk_ too much. Hulk crush little blue.”

 

Yondu laughed. “I'd like to see ya try.”

 

He whistled. The crowd held its breath. All sound faded – the Hulk's heavy breaths, Kraglin's drumming pulse. There was only the whistle. High, shrill, constant as tinnitus.

 

Yondu's arrow show straight and true. The ribbon swirled out behind it, tethering it to his waist.

 

And, when it rebounded on the Hulk's forehead and skittered across the sand, that same ribbon reeled it back.

 

Hulk scowled. Rubbed his forehead. A faint olive bruise stood out against his lime skin. Then his head swung to face them and he snorted hard enough to stir the sand.

 

“Aw shit,” said Yondu.

 

Kraglin wholeheartedly supported the sentiment. He hoisted himself off the ground, sprinting over.

 

“Tell me that weren't your only plan!”

 

“Uh, that weren't my only plan?”

 

“Oh god! When did you become a shitty liar?”

 

“Quit wastin' breath, idjit! _Run!_ ”

 

Kraglin turned a panicked circle as the Hulk lumbered towards them. “Where? Oh -”

 

Yondu had already gone, full pelt in the opposite direction. His arrow trailed behind.

 

Kraglin's ears drooped. He stared down the thundering behemoth. Useless. It was useless. He wasn't going to make it.

 

He made the calculations without any thought to numbers or equations – just an instinctual knowledge that in the time it took him to pick up his running speed, the Hulk would already be upon him.

 

This was it. He was dead.

 

His legs quivered, jellified and useless. He sunk down into the sand.

 

Closer. Closer. The Hulk's feet hit the floor like meteor strikes. Kraglin couldn't breathe, couldn't look, couldn't –

 

The sand jumped on either side of him. Kraglin bounced, yelling hoarse. He expected be pulped, mashed to goo, his brains squeezing up between the Hulk's green toes.

 

It wasn't to be. The thumping receded, taking those tree-trunk legs with them.

 

“Idjit!" Yondu screamed over his shoulder. "Don't'chu conk out on me now!”

 

Kraglin rolled onto his front. He pushed slowly to sit. His tongue felt rough as a cat’s when he rubbed it over his eyes, taking in the scene.

 

Yondu ran at the opposite end of the arena. He was already puffing, his arrow zapping all around, distracting Hulk like a flitting moth. The Grandmaster's chortles reverberated through the auditorium.

 

“Oh, isn't this delightful, darling? Look at him go! Fleeing for his miserable life.”

 

Kraglin concentrated on dulling the adrenaline rush. His hands flexed, claws unsheathing by another sharp-curved inch.

 

“Yondu,” he said. He staggered upright, waited for his balance to settle, and started forwards.

 

Yondu shook his head. The prosthetic exaggerated the gesture enough for Kraglin to see it at a distance. “No! Go for the ship, dumbass – the ship!”

 

Hearing Yondu's command, the Valkyrie burst from her seat. “You better not lose, Udonta!" she bellowed. "And you better not even _think_ about stealing my ship!”

 

Yondu ran past, yelling in her vague direction. “Ain't yer pay cheque gambled on me dyin'?”

 

“No, you dolt! Dodge!”

 

Yondu did so, swerving under the blow. The Hulk’s fist split the dust cloud and bashed halfway through the concrete lining of the arena. Plaster chunks embedded themselves in Yondu's up-thrown arms. “Fuck! Ow!” But he couldn't resist a grin for the Valkyrie, even as he scrambled away and the chase began anew. “ _Knew_ you’d fall for me.”

 

“Fucker,” the Valkyrie growled. Then her eyes popped wide. “Behind you!”

 

Yondu didn't quibble. He ate dirt.

 

Not a moment too soon. The Hulk battered the air above him, roaring loud enough to shock even the Grandmaster silent.

 

He recovered quickly. “That's it!” he crowed, as the green monstrosity reared above Yondu, who struggled through the sand on his belly. “Finish him! Crush him!”

 

“Pass,” growled Yondu, and whistled. It didn't skewer the Hulk – but it did piss him off mightily when it booped off his nose. His infuriated bellows gave Yondu time to drag himself upright. He snarled when he saw Kraglin stood frozen below the wall.

 

“Go! He's too fast for us both to run together. I gotta distract him, so you get on board, an' I'll fly over to ya -”

 

Kraglin swallowed. His throat was dry like he'd been drinking wood shavings. “I ain't forgiven ya,” he croaked.

 

Yondu cracked a smile. “I know. S'okay. M'sorry for tryin' to push ya.”

 

Kraglin's heart skipped a beat. Or at least, it felt like It – that or time had very briefly caught the rest of the universe in a freeze-frame.

 

“Yer apologizin' properly this time?”

 

Yondu considered it, then shrugged. His arrow darted around the Hulk, jabbing him from every angle, swooping with the aim to hit his eyes. Yondu didn't watch it. Even as the great green beast thrashed, close enough that an outflung hand could snatch him, Yondu's gaze remained fixed on Kraglin.

 

“Guess I am,” he said, quiet enough the rumble of a riled-up Hulk drowned out the words. That was okay. Kraglin could read his lips – in between the purses as Yondu renewed his whistle. “I'm sorry, Krags.”

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

“The hell're you doing?” the Valkyrie screamed. “Now is _not_ the time for this conversation!”

 

“My, my.” The Grandmaster observed her from under a steepled brow. “You seem surprisingly invested.”

 

Valkyrie shook her head. She looked irritated, and most of it seemed to be directed at herself. “I laid a drunk bet, is all. Put it on him instead of the Champion. And _apparently –_ “ Here she raised her voice. “ _That was a mistake!_ ”

 

“Ah, you p-poor fool.” The Grandmaster patted her wrist. His attention returned to the ring, where the Hulk slapped the arrow to one side. It dashed against the wall, tinkling to the floor. It didn't snap – not quite. The Grandmaster's smile wavered when he noted the furry miscreant – Kraglin, wasn’t it? – clambering up the ring's opposite side. “Uh, Valkyrie, dear? Your concerns for your ship; I believe they are f-founded.”

 

“Dammit!”

 

The Valkyrie vaulted the back of her chair – and Loki too, who exuded a most inelegant squawk – and bounded for the exit. “Stay away from my ship, you bug-eyed freak! Or you’ll face me instead of the Hulk!”

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

Kraglin finished scaling the wall, scrambling over the lip and pausing to pant. Crap. If he was worn out, Yondu would be in worse position. The guy wasn't built for cardio – plus, as Quill did so love to remind him, there was his age to contend with. Yondu’d be lucky not to pop a hip, regardless of whether Hulk caught him.

 

Kraglin had to hurry.

 

He scampered for the ship, bundling through the door and into the cockpit as the Valkyrie puffed to the far end of the stands.

 

“Dammit!” she yelled, as his claws curled around familiar controls. “Not my fucking ship!”

 

Kraglin barely noticed. He punched the lift-off button, pushing the throttle forwards so the engine roared.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

Yondu, wheezing where he pressed back against the wall, Hulk lumbering towards him, let himself sag in relief.

 

“Good boy,” he gasped. "Good boy."

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

The engines blared loud as a klaxon. Their tone shifted when Kraglin angled the thrusters, scooting the ship tentatively over the arena.

 

Yondu no longer had the energy to turn the colosseum into a racecourse. If Kraglin didn't help him, he'd die.

 

Kraglin tested his grip on the controls. Guns. There had to be guns on this thing somewhere, right?

 

He drifted closer, flaring the engines to catch the Hulk's attention. The old git needed all the time Kraglin could buy him, to catch his puff for that final whistling flight to safety.

 

Kraglin's index claw grazed a trigger. A targeting screen popped up, flaring over the glass – which was all very good, except that these holograms were barely hotter than their surroundings. They hardly registered to Kraglin's eyes.

 

Shit. Why couldn't he keep his damn color-vision when he transformed?

 

Kraglin squinted at the blurry concentric circles, wavering the ship to and fro as the Hulk snorted and stamped. Yondu cowered several meters behind. Well, not cowered. More _slumped_ : hands on his knees, gasping like his lungs might burst. His arrow wobbled by his shoulder.

 

Kraglin clenched his jaw, teeth interlocking. “You better be out of range,” he told the minuscule shape of his old captain, before squeezing the trigger down.

 

Flak striped the pit. It blasted sand in all directions, surrounding the Hulk in a gold-red cloud. His roar rang in Kraglin's ears – tapering, dying.

 

Kraglin hunched over the screen. He focused on the hot blot in the middle of the sandstorm, doing his best to keep the targeting field locked on. One thing was for sure – it would take a helluva lot of dakka to keep this monster down.

 

A helluva lot more than filled Kraglin's ammo tanks, as it turned out.

 

The Hulk cleared dust from his lungs. Kraglin couldn't see him yet, not through the billowing clouds, but his cough rumbled like a faraway explosion.

 

Shit.

 

Kraglin had gotten too close in his desperation to concentrate fire. Now he struggled to convince the ship to reverse. He'd flown similar set-ups, but every pilot put a subtly different configuration on their controls, both for personal comfort and to make it harder to steal. Valkyrie was no exception.

 

“Crap,” he wailed, as the thing in the smog staggered around to face him. “Crap-crap-crap-crap- _crap!”_

 

The last 'crap' was punctuated by the _crack_ as a massive green hand met the ship's wing.

 

“Not my ship!” the Valkyrie shrieked.

 

Kraglin fumbled through the collection of levers and buttons that littered the vessel's console. He slapped them one after another until – finally! He compressed a small blue nodule besides the joystick. The ship sprung into reverse.

 

It didn’t get far. Huge fingers curled into metal, warping it as if the Hulk had grabbed a stick of butter. The engines wubbed, the thrusters strained. But the Hulk hung on, and no matter how much force Kraglin diverted to the forwards-facing jets, the flames didn’t seem to burn him.

 

Fuck. What the hell kind of demon was this? Where had the Grandmaster found him?

 

No time for that. The Hulk's vast face peered in through the cockpit. Its tombstone teeth were bared – a grimace or a grin.

 

Kraglin's ears drooped flat to his skull.

 

“Stars,” he breathed.

 

Then, before the Hulk could chomp through his nosecone and shake Kraglin loose onto the sand, an arrow zoomed between his buttocks with pinpoint accuracy and jabbed whatever mysteries lay beyond.

 

“Miss me?”

 

Hulk howled. Kraglin gunned the throttle.

 

Pop! He burst away, the ship’s wing leaking coolant fluid and wiring over Hulk's wrist.

 

One of his cannons was past repair, an unrecognisable twist of steel. But overall, the damage wasn't catastrophic. He could still fly. The ship wouldn't stand up against a vacuum – but if he cannibalized the _Warbird,_ hacked the two ships together...

 

A chance. They had a chance. If they could only get out of this ring alive.

 

Unfortunately, that might not be an option.

 

The Hulk snarled at Kraglin. Then, as he watched, the green giant spat at him one final time and turned back to Yondu.

 

Yondu gulped. His shoulder blades hit the wall. Cold, hard steel. Nowhere to go.

 

“Crap,” said he and Kraglin simultaneously. Then the Hulk's outstretched hand swooped down.

 

“No!”

 

Kraglin's yell went unheard. He blasted the engines, clearing the dust cloud. There, at its center, stood the Hulk. And Yondu, struggling in one fist, desperate gaze locked on his. “Kraglin -”

 

“Yondu!”

 

“Go, you damn idji -”

 

The Hulk squeezed.

 

Kraglin screamed. He wasn't the only one, but Yondu's cut off practically before it began.

 

Kraglin's yell raised to the pitch of his howls. A long, trailing _no,_ as the arrow pattered lightly to the earth.

 

He gunned the ship forwards. If he couldn't save captain, he'd damn well take out the monster what killed him.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

“Oh no you don't,” growled the Valkyrie from the side-lines.

 

She glanced at the Grandmaster’s box. Perfect. Every eye in the house was pinned to the Hulk and his broken toy, whose head flopped back on his neck as the Hulk shook him, blood drooling from one corner of his slack blue mouth. But the Valkyrie? She looked at Kraglin.

 

“Not my ship, you bastard!”

 

Crashing it into the Hulk would do bugger all. That ugly green mastodon would brush himself off in the wreckage, use Kraglin's bony arm to pick his teeth, and most likely drag Yondu's mangled corpse back into his den to snack on at leisure.

 

The Valkyrie couldn't have that. The destruction of her ship, she meant – not their deaths.

 

Another glance revealed Sakaar's tyrannical lord leaning forwards in his chair, triumph inscribed in his grin. Loki and Topaz were equally engrossed. That left the Valkyrie free to activate her puppet drive, backhand Hulk with one of the ship's massive salvage-arms, and catch Yondu with the other when he slithered free.

 

Oh dear. He looked a little.... corrugated.

 

The Valkyrie grimaced. At the very least, she'd gotten Kraglin a body to mourn.

 

“Go,” she told the ship, as Kraglin stopped shrieking, realized what had just happened, and boggled down at Yondu, who leaked blood and a few pulpy organs into the cup of the ship's vast hand.

 

The ship shot off in a spiralling streak, blasting the Hulk with a bow-wave of exhaust. As their engines punched them towards the gritty grey cloudscape above, the Valkyrie reached around to her ship's undercarriage. She opened the hatch and shunted Yondu in, before deactivating the puppet drive once more.

 

The glow faded from her vambraces just in time. Topaz turned to glare at her. The Valkyrie made sure to instil her expression with appropriate wrath.

 

“Those bastards! They must've hacked my AI! I'll kill them for that scratch on my ship!”

 

Topaz looked profoundly dubious, as the Grandmaster patted the Valkyrie’s hand and offered a conciliatory grape. The Valkyrie was sure to smirk at her old friend as she popped it in her mouth, crunched it once between her teeth and swallowed it down.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **:blows kisses to every commenter and kudos-giver, even if you're just telling me what a monster I am for this chapter:**


	11. So What? I'm Still A Rockstar

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Last chapter! xx**

“Sir...”

 

Who dared interrupt his sleep? One of two possible culprits.

 

Yondu waved a hand. It smacked off the floor by his head, and when he tried to raise it again, he discovered that he didn't have the energy.

 

“F'ck off, Quill,” he garbled. The words didn't come out right. Yondu tried scowling, but his lips weren't working either.

 

“Sir – sir? Oh, stars, you're alive. Sir, can you hear me?”

 

Why weren't his lips working? The hell was going on? If Quill hadn't woken him, that meant it must be Kraglin.

 

Yondu relaxed on pure instinct. Stupid, arguably, to let his guard down just because his gawky mate was in the vicinity. Kraglin might be a threat with his knives and a menace with his blaster, but any truly nasty enemies, Yondu would need to fend off himself.

 

But Yondu was _tired,_ so very tired. Cement weighed on his eyelids, dragging them down. More poured onto his chest, making each breath a marathon.

 

“Five more minutes,” Yondu gurgled. Nope. Still unintelligible, even to his own ears. “Ugh. Whas goin' -”

 

“Sir,” Kraglin whispered. _“Sir._ ”

 

Yondu's throat _really hurt._ It felt stretched, almost. Distended. Like he'd given that young stallion ( _A Kymellian? When’d you fuck a Kymellian_?) a deep-throating.

 

Yondu testingly bit down. No scream. His teeth clicked off plastic.

 

A tube. There was a tube down his throat. His limbs barely responded, consciousness dawdling on the verge between shadow and light.

 

Shit. Yondu wasn't sleeping. He was _dying._ Again.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

It'd been a long time since Valkyrie last found herself in a Sakaarian interrogation room. The last incident had been when she told Topaz it just wasn't going to work out. Judging by the bulging vein in the woman's temple, she hadn't yet learned to forgive and forget.

 

Honestly. _Mortals._ That was their problem! They were so short-lived that even in their twilight years, they were less mature than the average Asgardian child – or not, considering Loki.

 

Valkyrie had her suspicions about the young princeling’s heritage. She was loath to admit them with the Grandmaster's toady in earshot, though. Topaz might not like Loki – might cultivate a borderline-paranoid wariness of anyone who got without shanking distance of En Dwi – but that wouldn't stop her siding with him against Valkyrie. She'd throw her support at anyone if Valkyrie was their enemy, up to and including Thanos.

 

Valkyrie shot Topaz her sweetest smile – the one she used to give her every morning. She slouched on her chair, one leg crooked up with the boot propped on the seat, the other outstretched.

 

“So,” she said, tapping her gauntlets off the table-top. “Where do we start?”

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

As the hours passed, Yondu's breathing only got shallower, shakier. His vital functions were slowing, winding down like a depowering M-ship thruster.

 

Kraglin – bluer and fuzzier than Yondu’s bleary mind told him he should be – clasped his hand and made incoherent wails and generally acted a nuisance. Yondu tried to slap him off, but couldn't muster the muscle coordination.

 

“S'okay, boss. S'okay. He’s on the way – ya just gotta hold on a bit longer.”

 

 _Who's on the way?_ Yondu wanted to snap. What sort of crazy deal had Kraglin made? What had he bartered with? They had fuck-all – one doddery M-ship, barely patched with scraps from another craft that was itself a hybrid hodgepodge of junk. No self-respecting pirate would help, and Quill – who had self-respect but was not, despite Yondu’s best efforts, a pirate – was on the other side of the populated galaxy.

 

In other words, they were screwed.

 

The _Warbird’s_ cruddy life support system would keep Yondu's lungs and hearts functioning until the poison from his burst guts worked its way into his bloodstream and sepsis turned him black and sticky. Sakaar was too far from populated quadrants for them to reach a medicenter sophisticated enough to put him back together, not within the day.

 

So, when you thought about it like that, it would be far kinder if Kraglin put a bolt through him now. Or perhaps slit his throat with those trembling claws – make it a bit more intimate, y’know? One last time for the road.

 

No. Kraglin hadn't been able to kill him in the Grandmaster's stadium, and he wouldn't be able to now. Not like it mattered to Yondu. He was so full of painkillers he barely remembered his own name, much less how they wound up in this dumb situation.

 

But when Kraglin clutched his hand and whimpered something about _don't make me a single fuckin' father, you bastard,_ Yondu made the mammoth effort of returning the squeeze.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

“So you're saying he hacked your puppet drive? Is that even possible?”

 

Valkyrie shrugged. “Guess it must be. Hey, can I grab a shower? I still smell of that junk pile.”

 

“The junk pile where they abandoned your ship.” Topaz smirked as she shuffled her sheathe of datapads, tapping them against the desk with a hard iron clack. “Convenient, that. Almost as if they were in cahoots with you.”

 

Valkyrie snorted. “You're forgetting that they _disembowelled_ my ship to fix theirs. You think I'd team up with scum like that? If anyone's the victim here, it's me.”

 

 _And Yondu,_ she thought privately. _Because he's almost definitely dead._

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

Yondu was almost definitely dead, but not quite. He still had the lucidity to notice when Kraglin scrambled to his feet, peering out the cockpit windows. “He made it! He’s here!”

 

Unfortunately, he also had the coherence to put it together, an instant before the bright beam of sunlight split through the windscreen, roasting him like an ant beneath a magnifying lens.

 

Only one bastard could fly halfway across the galaxy and the same length again in ten minutes. Only one bastard was fool enough to do it for him.

 

“You a-hole,” he croaked as Kraglin hurried to the airlock in a flurry of long navy limbs. “What've ya done? What've ya _done?_ ”

 

But of course, the tube in his throat blocked any answer. As Stakar Ogord stepped onto their ship, shaking out his still-steaming solar wings, Yondu decided that now would be an excellent time to fall unconsciousness.

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

“I don’t believe you,” Topaz sneered. A stray wisp of hair escaped the Alcatraz of her bun, making the death-defying dive over her ear. Topaz licked her finger and smoothed it down, her eyes never leaving Valkyrie’s. “I think I will report you as guilty, for conspiring with the Renegades to overthrow the Grandmaster. Then I will have you tossed into the arena to fend off the Champion, and laugh as he tears off your arms and uses your stretched hide as a drum.”

 

Valkyrie yawned. “That’s nice, dear.”

 

“ _Don’t_ call me 'dear'.”

 

“But you _know_ how I feel about my ship. I got a good life here, catching slaves for the Grandmaster.” Topaz made a sharp _shtup_ noise. Valkyrie rolled her eyes. “Sorry, sorry. _S-words._ ”

 

“That’s better,” came the Grandmaster’s petulant voice from behind the one-way mirror. Valkyrie cocked a brow at her reflection.

 

“Well?” she said, addressing her unseen king. “What do you say? Am I off the hook? I got a good thing going with you. I wouldn’t jeopardize that for some ship-stealing asshole and his pet.”

 

A mumble and a buzz of powering lights. The observation room revealed itself, glowing through the glass. The Grandmaster occupied his favorite perch, looking delicate as a grass-snake, coiled over Loki’s lap. He crossed his legs, receiving a grunt from his cushion as his bony ass dug in. “You raise a valid point. Plus, my scanners have picked up on a brewing SVH on Sakaar’s far side. A lot of concentrated energy involved – something powerful is coming.”

 

“And let me guess,” drawled Valkyrie. Her smile pinched her dark cheeks, and she wound a tendril of hair between her fingers, knotting and untangling, knotting and untangling, over and over again. “You want it.”

 

“Indeed I do.” The Grandmaster’s smirk was a devious slice. “I won this r-round, dear. ‘Fair and square’, as they say on Terra. That p-piffling blue pipsqueak was no match for my Champion! He’ll die slowly and in abject agony. I only wish I was there to enjoy his demise.”

 

“Sadistic mood today?” asked Loki, petting along his master’s slim thighs. The Grandmaster rolled back against him, cupping his cheek with a long-fingered hand.

 

“ _Masochistic_ for you, darling. I know how you love to use your knives.”

 

Topaz and Valkyrie exchanged glances. “The lights, sir?” asked Topaz, with hope. The Grandmaster nodded.

 

“Dim!” he said. Then, from the resulting darkness – “And let her go, Topaz. She has a job to do.”

 

And by the Grandmaster’s word, so it was done.

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

Yondu opened his eyes. Being as he never expected to do so again, this was quite the achievement.

 

Stakar filled his vision.

 

He looked magnificent as Yondu remembered. Tall, fierce, jaw jutted forwards and nose hooked as the beak of a hawk. A few more wrinkles, but no less indomitable for it.

 

Stakar Ogord, Ravager King. Yondu’s savior, his creator, his mortal and fallible god.

 

Or at least he had been, once.

 

His solar wings blazed brilliant white. They illuminated the duo as they soared through the slits between space-time, a beat out of pace with reality, moving simultaneously too fast and too slow for the vacuum to affect.

 

Yondu wriggled, cheek smushed against his one-time captain’s chest. “Did ya have to carry me bridal-style? I got a rep, y’know.”

 

The tube made imparting this message difficult. But Stakar heard the hitching rasp of his breath, and glanced down.

 

“You’re awake,” he said.

 

Yondu snorted. “Observant.”

 

“I can’t understand you. Don’t try to talk.”

 

There was a time when Yondu did anything Stakar told him, without question. Nowadays, he preferred to take direct orders as a challenge.

 

“Where’s Kraglin? The hell’s that boy at?”

 

“I assume,” said Stakar, his glowing eyes piercing the diaphanous folds of the universe ahead, “that you are concerned for your mate.”

 

Concerned? Pssh. Yondu was the one with a pulpy mess in place of intestines. Whatever medication Kraglin had jabbed him full of to hold pain and shock at bay, it worked wonders, but he was still the only one here actively dying. Unless Kraglin had done something  _really_ stupid.

 

“He’s following,” Stakar continued. His gripped Yondu a little tighter, pinching his bicep to his side and his legs together, although Yondu was too numb to feel it. Too numb to feel anything but the numbness itself: the strange prickles where his fractured ribs had burst through the skin, the slippery slide in his belly where things that were supposed to be attached together weren’t anymore. “Apparently, he has some business to resolve with the Collector before he can visit the hospital. I’ve given him coordinates, and he says to be alive when he gets there.” A swallow, a sideways glance. “Said he wouldn’t be able to forgive you, if you were dead.” 

 

Stakar Ogord, acting the messenger boy? Yondu could almost appreciate that irony. There was a time when he ran notes between Admiral and First Captain, after all, before the trial and the accusations that followed it, and the roar as Aleta gunned her engines for the Outer Rim and never once looked back.

 

He missed her. Yondu let himself acknowledge that, now at the end of all things. He missed them all.

 

They’d gathered for him. He remembered standing at the porthole window, Kraglin his bony crutch, watching the fireworks blossom together. They gave him the lights, they blasted the horns. They ushered him into the next world – and it had all been a lie.

 

Because Yondu was too weak to face them. Because when he heard Stakar’s voice over the comms, low and sonorous, booming out those words – _Yondu Udonta, is he alive? Where is my old friend? –_ he didn’t breathe for a whole minute, even though the space-exposure hadn’t terminally damaged his lungs.

 

No matter how strong he was, no matter how thick or high his fortifications, Stakar could always, always bring them tumbling down. He made Yondu, and he broke him again. And now, slumped between his arms, the future a cavernous abyss, Yondu was more terrified than he ever remembered.

 

Stakar shrugged him higher with a grunt. Strong he might be, but many Beastie worms had been scoffed since the days when Ogord he carried a famine-thin slave from a blood-splattered ship. Yondu wasn’t the lightest guy. He also wasn’t the strongest or the toughest, no matter what he pretended. The mist over his eyes attested to that.

 

“Hey now,” said Stakar gruffly. “I’m with Kraglin. It’s easy to forgive someone when they’re dead, but that doesn’t make it real.” The warmth of his palms thawed the ice that was creeping through Yondu's dying meat-sack. “I’m not saying it won’t be difficult. But you’ve never been one to let a little hardship put you off.”

 

He hadn’t, at that. Yondu turned his face to rub on Stakar’s chest, over the muffled thump of his heart through leather. He left damp streaks on the navy, glittering for a fractured second before the swirl of the solar winds dashed them away.

 

He thought of Kraglin, and Quill, and Rat and Twig, and Stakar, and the nameless little thing gestating in the Collector’s cabinet of curiosities.

 

Stars. Quill would never let him live it down if he caught him blubbering. Best Yondu get it all out now.

 

He curled in Stakar’s arms and hid his face against him, squeezing his eyes tight shut. Stakar noticed, but he had the decency not to point it out. He tucked his chin over Yondu’s crown, just briefly, stubble scratching his temple and almost risking having his eye poked out by the prosthetic. And hell, Yondu needed to punch him - yell at him,   _whistle;_ anything to prove he weren't this stupidly, pathetically grateful. Just... not yet. 

 

“That’s it.” Stakar's voice rumbled through him, vibrating under Yondu’s fists. “I’ve got you. I’m taking you home.”

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

Valkyrie reclined on her ship’s newly-refurbished wing, gazing up at the stars. She raised her bottle, its cold lip sticking to hers. Then, contemplatively, raised it further, outstretched in a toast to the galaxy at large.

 

“To two blue a-holes,” she said with a rakish grin. “I hope you assholes never get lost again.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Thank you a thousand times to everyone who's left comments and kudos on this fic. Y'all are incredible. It's a weird little story that wouldn't leave me alone, and it's truly been wonderful sharing it with you all. You're an amazing audience <3 I'd love to write a oneshot sequel where Kraglin steals the baby back from the Collector - I have some ideas of what could go down, just.... not much time to write it right now. We'll see! Still, thank you for all your enthusiasm. On the offchance this never gets done, rest assured that they all live happily ever after.**

**Author's Note:**

> **Thank you to everyone who reads this! You can find me on tumblr atWrite-like-an-american or ask-a-ravager!**


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